


Vacation (All I Ever Wanted)

by Banshi13



Series: Maluhia [2]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Romance, Exes as Friends, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Vacation, these boys, tying up loose ends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:13:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26588689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Banshi13/pseuds/Banshi13
Summary: Steve just got back from his jaunt around the world, so it makes total sense that he would take another vacation, right?  But maybe this time, he doesn't go alone.  Maybe, just maybe this time, he goes with the person he should've taken with him in the first place.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett & Danny "Danno" Williams, Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Series: Maluhia [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760446
Comments: 98
Kudos: 211





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back! Nope, I’m not stopping with writing these boys, not yet anyway. And with the cliff hanger I left all of you with the last story, how could I not continue on, right?  
> I think the first part of this series was completed in mid-June sometime and from that point on, I started writing the second installment of the series. I plan to add to this as ideas and inspiration come to me, since now that the series is over, I can pretty much do whatever I want :D
> 
> The story is written, and besides some minor editing, I should be posting new chapters fairly regularly. Grab a soda and some popcorn (or whatever your favorite snacky-snack is), and enjoy the incoming fluff!
> 
> _Disclaimer: Hawaii Five-0 and the characters found within the series are owned by CBS Productions, K/O Paper Products, and 101st Street Productions. No profit is being made off of this work_.

Steve was shifty. Had been, really, for the past few days.

Danny had noticed it on the second morning after Steve had come home. Danny’d been in the kitchen, worshiping his freshly, French-pressed-and-brewed Kona, when he’d heard movement from the upstairs. He’d gotten a mug out for Steve, along with the ridiculous grass-fed butter the goof insisted upon, and hadn’t been surprised when, just a few minutes later, Steve had blearily broken over the threshold and into his view. The jet lag had been wreaking havoc on him, but Danny was relatively certain that that wasn’t the reason why his partner’s cheeks and neck had suddenly flushed. Steve had mumbled a good morning, stirred some butter into his coffee, and had hopped back upstairs; Danny heard the shower running almost a full minute later.

That had been four days ago. Now, it was a Saturday, and Danny was lounging in one of the long chairs on the patio behind Steve’s house, watching as his partner set up tables and chairs for a team get together they were having later that afternoon. While some of Five-0 had seen Steve since he’d gotten back – Junior had practically tackled his mentor to the floor upon seeing him come down the stairs after coming home from spending the night at Tani’s the next day – not everyone had had the chance to welcome him back in person. Danny had suggested an Ohana barbecue for Steve to see everyone and his partner had readily accepted, but the next morning was when the first cracks of apprehension had begun to break through and Steve had only become more jittery since. Well, jittery for Steve, that is.

"You know, if you're anxious, we can call everyone and tell them to come by next weekend sometime, or just a few at a time," Danny bent his knee a bit to scratch at the tanned cap of it. "They'd understand if you didn't want everyone to bumrush you the minute you got back."

"No, it's fine," Steve finished popping the legs on the last table and settled it firmly before securing the locks underneath, before flipping it up right and moving it alongside all the others, using the same precision he’d utilized to knock off sniper targets to line the tables up perfectly one by one.

"It's fine?" Danny stretched his leg back out, flexing and wiggling his toes. "You've been acting like you’re due for a tetanus booster or like you’ve got another bodyguard gig for my ex mother-in-law coming up, instead of a nice, relaxing barbecue babe. They're not mad at you; you know that, right?" He watched as Steve straightened up, maybe a bit more than he needed to, really. 

"Okay, so maybe I'm a little... it's a little overwhelming, I guess, is all," Steve confessed, scratching the back of his neck and looking remarkably like a high school kid who’d just been told he’d been nominated for Prom King. Danny gave a considering hum in response.

"Understandable. You cosplayed as David Carradine for over two months, didn’t talk to many people for most of it," Danny shrugged. “Though I gotta say, overall, your hair and your feet look a lot better than his did when he ended his quest.”

Steve cleared his throat, looking around. "Yeah, that's probably what it is,” he muttered distractedly.

It was Steve's about face to the stack of chairs, which blocked his expression from view, that made Danny's Steve-Is-Avoiding-The-Subject-Senses go off. "So that's it then. That's why you've been so anxious since you got back."

"Anxious?" Steve didn't look over his shoulder; if anything, his hands moved a little quicker as they took the chairs down from the stack one by one.

"Yeah, anxious."

Steve sounded the word out slowly, each syllable long and exaggerated as if he’d never heard the term before. "Anxious."

"I can define it for you or use it in a sentence like they do at Charlie’s spelling be contests." Danny’s snarky voice was in stark contrast to the consternation he was feeling as he watched Steve carefully, the always present combination of his intuitive instincts and knowing Steve better than anyone else on the planet making him push the issue a little more. "That's all that's bothering you? Seeing everyone again?"

"Yeah," Steve shrugged, clearly distracted by the chairs, and Danny never knew that Steve had ever taken unstacking furniture so seriously. "I mean, what else would it be?"

"I don't know, Steven, that's why I'm asking you."

"Danny, I'm fine, okay, I promise. It's probably just like you said - haven't seen them for a long time, and maybe I'm just a little apprehensive about them seeing me. Hey, hand me that towel, this chair's wet."

Steve held out his hand for the towel, his fingers making little grabby movements. Danny knew the signs for when a discussion was over, so he let the subject drop for the time being and did as he was asked, passing the requested item over. But Steve was being uncharacteristically cagey, had been for a couple of days now, all of which was serving to make Danny antsy and nervous himself, because he couldn't help but see the similarity in Steve's behavior today and how he'd been acting a few months ago.

Before he left.

"Danny?"

Danny blinked, finding Steve looking down on him, just a hint of concern on his face. 

"You okay?"

"Yeah, sorry," Danny shook his head. "Just... yeah, fine." He steadfastly ignored the dubious expression Steve was giving him (not to mention his own, hypocritical response in light of their most recent conversation), and settled back in to watch his partner set up for what, Danny hoped, would be a relaxing afternoon.

“Is Rachel still bringing Charlie over?”

“Yeah, and Grace is home from school now, so she’s coming by, too.” Never one to miss a chance to talk about his children, Danny easily followed Steve’s change of subject. “Charlie’s pretty excited to see you. Rache just wanted me to double check with you that it’s still okay that he spends the night.”

“Of course it’s okay, Danny, just as long as he still wants to. You know, he hasn’t seen me in months,” Steve chewed his bottom lip. “You think he’ll like the stuff I got him?”

"He’ll love all of it," Danny assured him, pushing away the thought that Steve looked adorable when he bit his lip like that. "He'll probably love putting that model ship together with you, too. But if you got him all those gifts because you think he’s mad at you, he's not, Steve. You don't have to bribe him or anything, you know?"

"Yeah? What about you?" Steve turned a knowing eye on Danny, who hardly batted an eyelash at the implication.

"I'm not mad at you either,” Danny answered softly. Which was technically true. Danny wasn't angry with Steve, not anymore. A little weary, perhaps, that Steve would pick up and jet off island again, and maybe, possibly still hanging on to some resentment that Steve had left so soon after Danny had been shot and kidnapped and beaten softer than an old punching bag, but angry at Steve? No; any pissiness Danny had previously experienced had seeped out of him like water from a siv the night he'd found Steve in the garage rooting around in a tool box for paint brushes, a dumb, trepidatious look on his face when he’d turned around and was faced with Danny for the first time in almost a dozen weeks. 

Now, recently realized and stupidly in love with the idiot Neanderthal was a different story, and perhaps also a pipe dream, but Danny had felt an accountable ease in his shoulders and chest ever since he'd outed himself to Rachel. That had to count for something, even if Steve didn't feel the same way.

"You've been avoiding me since I got back," Steve said, an accusatory pout on his face.

"I've been giving you space," Danny corrected, defending himself. "You just got back from a two-month siesta, in which your stated purpose was to find some peace of mind or your center or whatever. I didn't want to smother you."

"Smother me?" Steve paused in his chair-placing. "What'd I tell you about that, huh?"

"About what? Not smothering you? Most people like breathing, Steven, though I understand that you can hold your breath for an insane period of time -"

"About treating me any different than you normally would because of whatever you think is going on in my head?" Steve cut him off, exasperated. "You haven't slept here the past three nights, Danny, and I know you said you were just going to check on your own place and do some cleaning or whatever, but come on - You practically lived here full time while I was gone; now when I come back, you can't stand to be here?"

"Okay," Danny held up his hands in surrender at the hurt look on Steve’s face. He really, really couldn’t deal with that look; call him weak, but it was Danny’s Achilles heel when it came to Steve, one among many. “Okay. I'm sorry. I thought you could use the space to just acclimate yourself to being back home again. I apologize. I will commence with the smothering."

Steve tossed a wry 'thank you' Danny's way and continued with unstacking the chairs and sliding them under the tables, which was really more of a full-frontal attack than any furniture truly deserved. Danny watched him for a few more minutes before announcing that he was going to get the chicken, steaks, and ribs ready, and didn't miss the eye roll from his partner that sent the message to Danny that Steve thought it was just another excuse to avoid him. Not knowing quite what to do with that, Danny stole himself into the kitchen and began plating chicken wings and ribeyes, a simple task he could wrap his head around, unlike the putz outside, until he heard knocking at the front door. He washed his hands and headed into the living room opening the door to see Rachel, Grace, and Charlie - Charlie, who was bouncing up and down on his toes the way he did when he was over excited and Rachel would tell him to stop jumping. It was a cheat all kids learned and one that Charlie excelled at, simply keeping his toes on the ground while bopping about, yet not technically leaving the ground either. 

It drove Rachel crazy.

"Danno, is Uncle Steve here!?"

Danny's hands flew to his chest and over his heart as if mortally wounded that his son's first instinct was to ask about his wayward uncle and not his father. "'Is Uncle Steve here'? What about _me_ , huh? What about your dad, I'm here too, buddy.

Charlie only grinned, wide and mischievous like, looking so much like Rachel that Danny’s heart did a nervous flip. "Yeah, but I saw you a few days ago, Dad. I haven't seen Uncle Steve in a really long time!"

Well, what could Danny say to that? His kids were a logical bunch. "Yeah, he's outside in the back yard; go say hello."

As Charlie darted off, Grace fell in beside Danny, hanging on to him in a side-hug that Danny cherished even more these days since his oh-so-mature-college-aged-daughter had flown the coop. Danny wound an arm around her waist, tugging her a little more tightly to him, soaking up every moment of that hug and finally pecked a kiss to her cheek, letting her go. "Go make sure your brother hasn't bowled Steve over yet."

As Grace left through the living room and headed out into the backyard, Danny shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at Rachel. "You staying?"

"Perhaps for a little while," Rachel nodded. "As long as you think it's alright?"

"Why wouldn't it be?" 

Rachel hummed, shrugging the question off as she looked around. "You've finished painting?"

"Well, the living room, the study, and the kitchen, yeah," Danny stepped back and his ex-wife fully inside, shutting the door behind her. "Still need to hit the hallway through there," he pointed towards the tiny corridor leading to the laundry room and the garage, "the downstairs bathroom, and then all the rooms upstairs and the landing and stuff, but uh, you know, it's coming along."

"And what's your color scheme for all that, then?"

"I dunno," Danny rocked back and forth on his heels, suddenly feeling not unlike a bug caught in a ray of sunlight reflected through a magnifying glass. "Why?"

Rachel peered at him. "You haven't told him."

"Told him what?"

"What you told me a couple of weeks ago when you were performing your Bob Ross routine," Rachel settled her hands on her hips, and Danny settled in for what was shaping up to be an arduous session of interrogation-by-ex. He put the dumbest, most confused look on his face that he possibly could, mostly to get a rise out of Rachel because he needed some laughs in his life, and replied, "I said lots of stuff a few weeks ago, Rache."

"The part where you told me you were in love with Carmen Sandiego out there," she snorted, jerking a thumb over her shoulder to indicate Steve, who, Danny could see, was being heckled by two kids who were over-the-moon ecstatic to see him.

"Okay," Danny cleared his throat, "first, Carmen Sandiego is a woman and a thief. Steve is a man and a cop, so I don't where you're coming up with that analogy-"

"Obviously from the amount of global travel they’ve both done," Rachel cut in smoothly.

"I prefer Qui Chin Kang, myself."

"Daniel," Rachel narrowed her eyes, and Danny sighed, deflating surprisingly easily. "You have to tell him."

"I never said I was in love with him, Rachel. I said I loved him." Danny clarified - weakly, but still, clarified - "Those are two very different things."

"You are a horrible liar, Daniel Williams." Rachel was as assured in her stance as she ever was; maybe it was the British in her, that made her so certain. Danny hadn't figured it out when they were married, and he highly doubted he'd puzzle it through in the future.

"You should tell him, Danny," Rachel urged on, looking at him with big, brown doe eyes that used to convince Danny to do anything in the world, and that he found himself cursing Rachel for sometimes since Grace had inherited them, along with the no-holds-barred attitude in using them. He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling tension pooling at its base.

"At any rate," Rachel cleared her throat, glancing at the watch on her wrist; a new watch, Danny noticed. "You're certain it's alright if Charlie stays the night?"

Danny blinked, forgetting the spiffy new time piece and looking up at her. "Yes, Rachel. Yes, we've been over this a hundred times -"

"I know, I know, but I just want to make sure that it's truly fine with you both is all. I didn't know if he or you had any plans later," Rachel flashed a quick smile Danny's way, but Danny could see that it was off, somehow. It was the same smile she used to get back when their marriage first began to crumble and she either didn’t want to fight over something or wasn’t being entirely honest or wanted to distract him from asking any further questions.

"I distinctly remember telling you a few days ago to let Charlie spend the night, and then texted you two nights ago when you wanted to make sure then," Danny counted off the reassurances on a tired, but sure finger. "Then last night, when you called, I told you again, I said, 'yeah, sure, no problem Rache, Steve would love to have him stay over'; I said that to you, and now here we are again, with me repeating myself." He dropped his hands, tilted his head, looked at the watch again – the new, very nice watch. "What've you got going on tonight, Rachel?"

Even if Danny hadn't been a cop, Rachel scratching at her neck nervously would've been all the tell he needed. He could've been peeved, really, but honestly, he was rather entertained as he offered his hypothesis aloud. "Oh, I see... you've got a date tonight, huh?"

"I do not have a date," Rachel grumbled. Flushed, and grumbled, Danny couldn't help but notice with glee. 

"You do! You've got a date, an honest to God date," Danny rubbed his hands together, beyond ecstatic to have the focus off of him and his (in-all likelihood) soul encompassing love for Steve, and now on his ex and her apparent new beau. He crossed his arms, a wide smile on his face. "That’s a very nice watch, you have on, by the way. A very nice, new, snazzy watch. So, what's his name?"

"Why? Are you going to run a background check on him?"

"Among other things," Danny nodded. 

"You, of course being an officer of the law, know it's illegal to run a criminal history on someone for personal reasons?"

"C'mon, Rache, give," Danny looked at her, pulling his trump card. "Even at our worst, I told you about every girl I dated after we divorced so you'd know who'd be around Grace. Who is he?"

"We're not on the level yet where you need to know anything about him, Danny."

"Oh, really? Because you’re buying new watches and you're really desperate to make sure Charlie can stay here tonight and Grace is more than capable of taking care of herself, and being that she hasn't mentioned anything about sleeping over at a friend’s house tonight, I'd say that means you plan on going home with this guy." Danny narrowed his eyes at her, feeling a soft glow of satisfaction as her gaze darted towards the soft brown of the wood floor beneath them in supplication to his point. "So yes, Rachel - we have reached the stage where I need to know who this guy is."

Rachel sighed, mirroring Danny and folding her arms over her chest. "His name is Mark Erickson, and I didn’t buy this watch; he did. It was a gift."

"Mar - Mark _Erickson_?!" Danny just about fell over, shaved blonde headfirst. "As in _Congressman_ Mark Erickson, who's running for _Governor_? _That_ Mark Erickson?"

"I can't imagine why I'd've had any reason not to tell you," Rachel deadpanned. 

"Are you serious?” Danny gaped at her. “Are you joking with me right now?"

"Look at it this way," Rachel smirked. "Now you don't have to do that illegal background check." 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's good to be back! Thank you everyone for the lovely comments so far!

Steve's house and yard were filled with food and beer and people by late afternoon. Danny was glad for that as he stood back and watched Steve catch up with everyone - Junior, Tani, Lou; Adam had dropped by (sans Tamiko, Danny couldn't help but notice) and stayed for an hour or so, and Cole had also slipped in for a few minutes before begging off with the excuse that his mentor, Major Phillips, was expecting him. 

Quinn had shown up, dragging Rick along with her, whom Danny had only met once before but remembered taking an instant liking to once he discovered Rick owned his own bar. Even better was that Rick had offered half off pints and wings for the team whenever they came by, because Rick considered them family by that point, and the tussle both Five-0 and Rick’s friends had had with the CIA at the beginning of the year was enough to sow enough loyalty to make the Starks of Winterfell proud.

And, as a rule, Danny would never turn discounted beer and wings.

Nor free shrimp. Kamekona and Flippa had brought a smorgasbord of what Grover affectionately referred to as ‘sea creatures’ – shrimp, lobster, and crab legs - along with one very excited Nahele, who’d made for Steve like Danny imagined Kamekona would go for a new, promising business venture. To Danny's dismay, his entrepreneur friend hadn't charged anyone a single dime. "Special occasion, brah," Kamekona had replied when Danny had asked about his bottom line. "Even a businessman like myself has a heart." Danny was so surprised, he let all the usual sarcastic responses float away on the spicy shrimp scented breeze.

Rachel had left not long after dropping Charlie off, along with her bombshell dating news. Danny had just barely resisted telling her that he'd file his criminal check report with her the following Monday as he'd waved her off. Charlie hadn't moved from Steve's side since he'd attacked him earlier and had only half-heartedly wrapped his arms around his mother's neck when she came to kiss him goodbye. Rachel had been a good sport about it though; she'd merely rolled her eyes, told Steve she was glad he was back, and that had been that.

Now, Danny watched as Steve sat in a chair, Charlie on his lap and thumbing through one of the books his uncle had bought him, while their friends surrounded him on either side. Junior and Tani were sharing a long chair while Lou had grabbed one of the regular seats and had pulled it up next to Steve. Quinn and Rick had claimed a patch of grass, beers resting comfortably between them. Catching Steve up on everything that had happened while he'd been gone had proven a raucous affair filled with laughter and jokes, and Danny was glad to see that none of the anxiety that had been plaguing Steve earlier was anywhere to be found as he soaked in the presence of his ohana.

And, Danny realized as he glanced over his shoulder at the house, people were still coming. Noelani had arrived, boyfriend on one arm and a twelve pack of Longboards on the other, and Danny wasn't the only one who'd noticed her arrival; Steve was up and out of his seat, meeting her halfway and bending down to give Noelani a tight hug along with a firm handshake to her companion. Danny watched Steve lead them over to the group where they took up their respective seats - Noelani and her beau on the grass, and Steve back in his chair (with Charlie reclaiming his lap).

The whole thing made Danny gooey inside.

"Feeling a little anti-social?"

Danny barely kept himself from jumping at the voice behind him, but only because it had a familiar, Aussie lilt to it. His feet fumbled a bit as he turned to greet Ellie. "Hey, I thought you weren't gonna be able to make it."

"So did I, but it's always nice when defense counsel calls to make a deal on a weekend, thus negating the need for a Saturday afternoon standoff," Ellie offered a one armed hug. "Looks like Steve's been busy since he got back."

Danny blinked. 

"The house?" Ellie gestured behind her at Steve’s house, alive and lit up like a Christmas tree. The sight made Danny’s heart swell just a bit. "I know it's been a little while since I was here, but it still smells freshly painted, and I do remember that the living room wasn’t a light blue before."

"Oh," Danny laughed, ducking his head a bit and tugging on the grass with his toes. "Nah, that - well, he helped finish up the study part in his dad's old office, but I got bored, you know, while he was gone, so. Yeah."

"So... you painted his house?" The only way Ellie's eyebrow could lift any higher was if it separated itself from the follicles keeping it in place, and Danny suddenly found himself wondering if it had been strange after all, that he'd taken on a painting project in a house that didn't belong to him in either name or deed, and whose owner had been hopping, skipping, and jumping across the globe for the past two months.

So, he shrugged, simply responded, "it needed an update", and left it at that. Danny didn't know what he'd do if Ellie pushed for more information, but it as it turned out, she resisted the cross examination opportunity hovering before her, and Danny was rather grateful for that bit of prosecutorial discretion. As Ellie walked off towards Steve and the rest of the group, Grace came alongside him, slipping an arm through his and resting her head on his shoulder. "Is Uncle Steve okay now?"

Danny wrapped an arm around his daughter’s shoulders and gazed over to where Charlie was still commandeering said uncle's lap, though there was a question for just how much longer that would last, because Charlie, Danny could tell, was beginning to droop, was letting his head settle on Steve's shoulder a little longer with each pass, was getting that distant look in his eyes that screamed 'I'm tired' but was also steadfastly resisting saying anything so he wouldn't be sent off to bed and miss all the fun.

Knowing his youngest was going to go down soon whether by nature or parent, Danny steered Grace towards the house and headed for the linen closet once he was inside. "He's okay," Danny started, rummaging through the blankets and grabbing a few of them, along with a pillow, for Charlie. "He's still got some things to work out and that’s going to take some time, but he's okay - a lot better than when he left."

"So, he's not going to go away again?"

"I hope not, monkey," Danny offered her a reassuring smile as he closed the door and headed into the living room, making up the sofa for Charlie. "I don't think he will," he continued, flipping out one of the blankets and lining the sofa with it. "He's had a rough couple years. He needed some time away. I think what he probably needs now is just some time to figure out what he wants to do, if he wants to stay with Five-0 or if he wants to branch out, find another line of work."

"If he leaves Five-0, will you leave too?"

Danny paused, a second blanket in his hands. He hadn't considered that. "I don't know, Grace,” he answered slowly, as he if he was sounding out his answer. “Being a cop is all I ever wanted to be since I was Charlie's age. That'd be a big change."

"Couldn't you retire though? Mom said you've worked long enough where you can if you want to."

"I could, yeah," Danny nodded, a small huff of a chuckle escaping into the blanket he swept up and laid flat on the couch. "That's one of the reasons why we were looking to get the restaurant set up, me and Steve, but that wound up not working out."

"Why?"

"Neither of us were ready to quit the job, then," Danny shrugged.

"What about now?"

The portion of Danny’s internal radar that was reserved solely for his children was pinging loudly as he settled the other blanket on the couch. He turned around, considered his little girl who was no longer so little, looking at him with an expression that made Danny’s heart clench just a little bit. "What's this about, Grace?" he finally asked. She shrugged, looking away from him toward the newly painted walls, and while Danny liked the color himself, he knew it wasn’t interesting enough to hold anyone’s gaze for long.

"No, no, no, no," Danny edged forward, nudging her with a gentle elbow. "Come on, don't shrug your shoulders. Tell me what's going through that gorgeous head of yours, huh?" He planted a kiss on her hair. "You want me to retire, is that it? Want Steve to retire?"

Grace looked at him with sharp eyes that could cut diamonds, and Danny didn’t have near enough time to get his shields up in preparation for what she said next. "I don't want Uncle Steve to go away again and leave you alone. And I don't want you to get hurt anymore."

Talk about being blunt. Danny almost very nearly buckled under Grace's steady, brown eyed gaze. 

"C'mon, c'mere." Danny tugged her gently to follow him into the kitchen. Grace leaned against the island while he dug around in the fridge, finding a beer for himself and a Coke for her. "So," he handed her the soda, "you're not wanting me to work for Five-0 anymore is what I'm hearing."

"I'm..." Grace winced, opening the can and taking a small sip. "I know you like being a cop and working with Five-0, and I don't want you to leave Uncle Steve, or him leave you... like, I know your jobs are important to the both of you and that you're partners."

"But," Danny pushed, sipping his beer.

"But it would also be really nice to stop getting bad news like you've been shot, or kidnapped, or beaten up, or that you were in a horrible wreck or a plane crash-"

"Okay," Danny hid his grin and held up a hand, because he knew Grace would keep going if he let her. He'd had this conversation dozens of times with Rachel when they'd been married and had learned early on that this particular list was truly endless. "Okay. You don't like the danger level. Well, tell you the truth, I'm not so wild about it myself."

"So, then why don't you just retire?"

"Well, for one, I might not be wild about the risk to safety ratio, but I can't say that I don't love my job, that I'm not fulfilled doing it." Danny leaned forward and set his bottle on the counter with a dull thud, sliding it back and forth between his hands absentmindedly. "And then there's the fact that if I leave, there will be no one to reign Steve in when he gets into one of his more explosive moods. I'm telling you, monkey - the state’s risk management agency would’ve gone bankrupt long ago if it weren’t for me keeping your uncle’s more destructive, maniac tendencies under control."

"Dannoooo."

"Yeah, okay," Danny sighed. Light heartened banter wasn’t going to do the trick here. Funnily enough, that had never worked with Rachel, either. "You know, your mother and me, we had this conversation a lot. She never liked the risks that came with my job, never understood why I couldn't just leave it, do something else, find something else that was safer, more uh… conducive to a home life. And to tell you the truth, Grace, I don't really understand it either. I just know that this is what I was born to do. Every day I do this job is another day that I know this world is safer for you and Charlie. And as long as Steve is with Five-0, I just wouldn't feel right about leaving him there, you know? He's..." _My best friend, a brother, all of that, maybe more, hopefully more, someday..._

"He's my partner," he settled on. "He's my partner and that's not something you take lightly in this business. You know, the decisions I make, they're going to affect him too, and if I decide to pack it in, call it a career, he's going to have to deal with that too, just as much as I will - more, really, if you think about it."

"So then why don't you both just retire?"

"We're not even forty-five yet, Grace; what would we do with all the time we got on our hands?"

"Take a vacation."

"He just got _back_ from a vacation."

"That wasn't a vacation!" Grace rolled her eyes, a much put upon look as if she couldn’t believe she actually had to explain whatever it was she was about to tell Danny. "A vacation is when you go someplace for fun, to relax, and for a week, two weeks tops, maybe three weeks out of the country if you know family and stuff, but over two months of being by yourself?! Nope, not a vacation. Not even a little bit, Danno."

Danny could count on one hand the number of times he'd been left speechless in his life. He mentally ticked off another finger and cleared his throat, trying to get back into this discussion with some kind of authority. "Okay, so uh, what are you saying? You want him to go away again for a few days? What do you want him to do, book a spa weekend or something?"

"No."

And that was when Danny noticed it: The Look. Not that Grace hadn’t been giving him a rather impressive overview of the many and varied expressions she had in her arsenal, but this look was special. This was… well, this was The Look.

From the time she'd been born, there had been moments where all Grace Elizabeth Williams had had to do was look at Danny with a certain imploring gleam in her eye, a kind of hopeful tilt just at the corner of her lips that would soon, Danny knew, part to ask him to do something for her, just especially for his monkey, in a voice that would be so sunshine sweet and innocent that Danny had always been certain he would burn in Hell if he dared to even think to deny her.

To this day, Danny hadn't been able to figure out how to say 'no' when Grace used that tactic, and he refused to believe that his little girl would ever knowingly manipulate her Danno in such a way.

Who was he kidding; he knew exactly who she’d gotten it from.

"You and Uncle Steve should go," Grace suggested, arms folded over her chest confidently. "Take, like, a long weekend to Maui or something, or hey, what about Kauai? You like Kauai, right Danno?"

And, oh, _oh_ , Danny caught that reference like the seasoned detective he was and devoured it with the appropriate amount of hungry guilt he still had for that trip with Rachel, and for lying to Steve about it. And for keeping it from Grace. "Not fair," he managed.

"But true," Grace shrugged in response. "I know how miserable you were while he was gone, Dad, it's not really a secret."

"It wasn't that bad, Gracie-"

"You painted his house to keep yourself busy and touched it up while he was gone; you called me and gave me a list of songs by New Jersey singers to text him; and, I talked to Mom about the last time she was over here, so." Grace looked at him, a perfect blend of infinite knowing with just a touch of annoying worldliness that all college Freshman seemed to ooze when they came home after their first year spent away from the nest. Danny made a mental note not to pay his share of the tuition the next time the bill came.

"Come on, Dad," Danny watched Grace slip towards him, felt her nudge him with her bare shoulder. "You've been running Five-0 since you came back. You should take some real time off where you're not painting a house or healing from another gunshot wound, and who takes vacations alone? No one, and Uncle Steve could use a real one, with a friend, so-" 

"Okay, alright, fine. I will talk to him about it," Danny groaned, but his defeat was well worth the hug and kiss on the cheek he got from his daughter. He supposed receiving those, at least, was a win.

**Hawaii Five-0**

"Looks like you make a pretty good bed."

Instead of turning his gaze up at the sound of Danny’s voice, Steve tilted his chin downward, a mop of dirty blonde hair filling his view and catching on his mouth. "I guess he got kind of tired after running around with Eddie," Steve nodded to the dog, who was sacked out at his feet breathing deep and even, though it couldn't be heard over the gentle roar of the waves lapping against the shore.

"You mean he got up off your lap for more than a minute?"

"He wanted to eat, then Eddie got his attention," Steve laughed, now tipping his head back to meet Danny's eyes. "He grew a lot the past few months.”

“Yeah, they get to that age and they grow like weeds,” Danny came around the side and settled into the other chair, crossing his legs at the knee and folding his hands in his lap, taking in the picture in front of him, of his son sleeping so perfectly and peacefully in Steve’s arms.

“Grace get off okay?” Steve asked quietly.

"Yeah, she left about ten minutes ago. Took a bunch of food with her back to her Mom's."

"You two were talking for a while; everything alright with her?"

"Yeah, she..." Danny laughed a bit. "She wants me to take a vacation."

"That's a good idea," Steve nodded. "You should."

"She would like for you to go with."

"... I just got back from a vacation."

"See, that's what I said, but Grace, with her newfound college wisdom that I am paying thousands of dollars of tuition for, by the way, thinks your time away wasn't so much a vacation as it was a self-flagellating journey."

Steve couldn't do much more than huff softly to himself with Charlie in his arms. "And she thinks going away again will do what?"

"She said you should have an actual vacation with a friend, you know, someone to pal around with, have a beer with, go interesting places with," Danny shrugged again. "I don't know, could be nice, I guess. A long weekend away some place. You know," he rolled his hand in the air, "just the two of us, Will Smith style."

Steve blinked. "Will Smith?"

"Yeah, you know the song, 'Just the Two of Us'? That song he did, a while back?" At Steve's continued blank stare, Danny waved it off with a dejected sigh. "Never mind, I forgot. You were probably on a submarine some place or building a desert shelter out of sand."

Steve smirked. "Give me the year the song came out and I'll let you know." 

"Wise ass," Danny muttered under his breath, his eyes falling to his son. "We should put him on the couch."

Steve was reluctant to get up, to lose the warmth of Charlie sleeping so contentedly on him, but Danny was right. He whistled at Eddie, a gentle enough alert that Charlie didn’t wake but loud enough so that Eddie would, and slowly got his feet under him to push up and off the chair, doing his level best not to jostle Charlie any more than he had to. He and Eddie followed Danny through the sand and grass back up to the house, and while Steve crossed through the study and living room to settle Charlie on the sofa, Danny switched the lanai lights off and quietly shut the door behind them, locking them safely inside. Eddie hopped up on the other end of the couch once Steve got Charlie situated.

"You know, it might not be so bad," Danny mused, watching as Steve tugged a few blankets up to Charlie's chin. His chest constricted just a bit at the sight in front of him, while his son continued to sleep on without a care in the world; Danny couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept so soundly. "I could use some time off, if for no other reason than Rachel dropped the bomb on me that she's dating the possible future Governor of Hawaii, who would also, incidentally, be my boss."

"Our boss," Steve stood straight, looking over a shoulder at Danny. "I'm coming back, Danny. I'm not sure when yet, but I _am_ coming back."

"That's what you decide to focus on? That you're coming back, and not that Rachel is dating Congressman what's-his-name representing the district of who cares?" Steve earned a decidedly moody glower from Danny and did nothing to hide his grin in return. 

"It's funnier that way."

"Oh, it's funnier that way? Alright," Danny turned on his heel and headed into the kitchen, Steve trailing behind because honestly, he'd missed this, the ranting and kvetching that only one Daniel Christopher Williams could give. "I think it's funny to leave all these dishes for you to wash and the trash to pick up while I have a beer and then go to bed. How's that for comedy, huh?"

"A regular riot," Steve ducked left towards the fridge and came back up with two Longboards, handing one to Danny. "So, Rachel's dating again, huh?"

"So it would seem." Danny took a long, long drink of his beer; he'd need it for this conversation, he just knew it. Whether it was because of the topic of discussion or the way Steve was looking at him, like a nervous collie afraid to tell its owner that yes, in fact, it was he who had knocked over the plant in the living room and yes, that was why there was dirt all over the once pristine and unblemished floor. "What's that look?"

"What - I don't have a look." And as if he were trying to make himself even more convincing, Steve shuffled over to the sink and started in on the aforementioned dishes.

"Because that's really convincing," Danny rolled his eyes.

"Are you jealous?"

"Am I - no, Steven, I am _not_ jealous."

"Because I'd understand if you were," Steve looked over his shoulder at Danny, who decided to shimmy his way up onto the counter, beer and all. It had become his perch, this counter. He’d coveted it prior to Steve’s departure and had no intentions of giving it up now that Steve had returned.

"I am not jealous, and there is nothing to understand,” Danny said with a forced ease that he wished he felt. “The only things that concern me are my kids, and how this guy is going to treat them, and how his life of dodging questions and raising my taxes is going to affect them, and us, if and when he becomes our illustrious new boss."

“Well, if you want, I can call in some favors, find out more about the guy.”

Danny was heartened at the offer but waved it off. “I already threatened to do a background check on him. Rachel pointed out that that was illegal, and that anything bad on him the press would have a field day with sooner or later. Plus, he’s already a congressman, so, you know – why are you laughing?”

“I’m not laughing,” said a very clearly snickering Steve as he continued rinsing pans and plates and setting them in the strainer. “I’m just, you know, I know people. People that could get some very good information that the press could only hope to get their hands on. What’d you say his name was?”

“Mark Erickson,” Danny muttered. As tempting as Steve’s offer was – and it was very, _very_ tempting – Danny shook his head ruefully, as if he were weighed down even more by the streak of honesty that had made itself at home in his conscience since the day he’d been born. “I told her I’d leave it alone, wouldn’t go crazy or anything.”

“Yeah, that may be true,” Steve placed a glass carefully in the strainer, turning towards him, his expression all but screaming ‘danger, Will Robinson’ to Danny. “You did. But I didn’t.” And that realization made it all the more enticing, to casually just let the matter drop so that Danny could tell Rachel with a straight face that he hadn’t so much as Googled the guy, silently knowing that, so long as Danny didn’t tell him out right _not_ to, Steve would go about prying into every crevice and peeking behind every curtain this guy had in his life, like an over eager, over curious golden retriever. It really was a very appealing request.

No, not request. Convenient and silent apparent apathy. Yes. Except…

“No,” Danny groaned. “Don’t do it. I’ll meet this guy soon enough, now that I know about him.”

Steve shrugged. “Suit yourself. Let me know if you change your mind.”

Danny drained the rest of his beer. “Junior head back to Tani’s tonight?”

“Yeah; you can take his room.”

“You know, the sooner we get in that third bedroom and clean it out, the sooner Junior can have a room, and I can have a room when I stay over - or Charlie or Grace can have that room and I can take the couch."

"No, no couch," Steve lifted a finger, pointing it severely in Danny's general direction. "The couch is Eddie's."

"You really need to get him an actual dog bed or something." Danny continued watching the monotonous, soapy routine in front of him. "You seemed a lot calmer, you know, with everyone earlier. 'Course, you had a kid on your lap so it's not like you could bounce around like a kangaroo or something, but... not as anxious as you've been." 

Steve just kept washing, even though Danny knew Steve had heard him. "So, tonight was good, yeah?" He pressed.

"Yeah, tonight was great." Steve's tone was just on this side of defensive as he answered. "Why wouldn't it have been?"

Danny blinked. Did they really have to go through this again? "Like I said earlier, before everyone got here... you were a little antsy, you've been a little anxious since you got back, you remember that conversation?"

"Yes, Danny, I remember that conversation. In fact," Steve turned towards him, dish towel draped between his hands as he dried them, "I've been trying to forget it, but thanks for reminding me."

"Are you trying to forget it because you were really nervous about something else, and not seeing everyone again?" Danny asked smartly. 

"Oh my God, one week." Steve muttered. "One week, you couldn't even go one week -"

"Without asking a question?"

"Without going all mother-Danno-hen on me," Steve held up his hands at Danny's outraged squawk. "Don't get me wrong, four, five days, is impressive, buddy, I'm proud of you, but-"

"It's a simple question! You're my best friend, my main guy, I want to make sure you're okay!"

"But in this case," Steve flipped the towel over his shoulder, "you've cost me fifty bucks. I now owe one Junior Reigns fifty dollars because I said it would take you at least seven days to pester me about if I was really okay, and he said, and I quote, 'Due respect, Commander, but this is Detective Williams we're talking about here'." And truly, it was the little quotation hooks Steve's fingers made in the air that sold the outrage here, so Danny responded in the only way he could.

"...Why can't that kid call me by my name after three years?"

"Fifty bucks, Danny," Steve's gaze told the story of a man disappointed in his friend for no good reason. "I bet on you, and I lost. You know what that means?"

Danny had no earthly idea what it meant, but he took the best guess he could: "It means that your plan to derail this conversation to avoid talking about my concern for your mental well-being worked?"

"That, and it also means whenever we go on this vacation of yours, you owe me a Grant." Plucking the dish rag off his shoulder, Steve tossed it at Danny, snickering as it landed on his partner's face. A dissatisfied huff was Danny's only reaction as Steve slinked away and out of the kitchen, a pleased set to his shoulders.

"Cute, Steven," Danny wrinkled his nose at the smell of the dish towel. "Very cute."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> President Ulysses S. Grant is the man featured on the U.S. $50 bill.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Disclaimer: Hawaii Five-0 and the characters found within the series are owned by CBS Productions, K/O Paper Products, and 101st Street Productions. No profit is being made off of this work_.

The next few days were strange.

And it wasn't that 'strange' was abnormal for Steve; he'd served in SEAL's and Naval Intelligence. God knew that Five-0 had given him some rather memorable experiences in the past decade or so. He'd watched his now seven-year-old niece on occasion while his sister had needed him to. Steve had concluded that children were odd, yet wonderful creatures a long time ago. Strange was a way of life for him now, rather than a once-in-a-while experience.

But Monday and Tuesday were just... weird. His team, including Danny now, who had stuck around for the few days after Steve had gotten back, was at work and Steve was at home. Steve suspected that Danny had initially taken a few days off to make sure that he wouldn’t go jet setting around the world again, but staying at home those two or three days, just him and Danny and Eddie, had been nice, calm, soothing. 

Now that Danny had returned to work, he was texting Steve constantly, checking in on him between meetings and paperwork - apparently, it was a slow week so far, but again, in the back of his mind, Steve knew that there was some part of Danny, however tiny and minuscule, that was afraid Steve would leave again, so Steve dutifully kept his phone on him and answered each text as soon as he could. That kept him at least a little busy.

In the ten years since he’d been with Five-0, Steve couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken a sick day or a vacation, or anything that kept him away from work for an extended period of time that didn’t involve secret missions or past operations. He felt restless, off. There was only so much jogging and swimming he could do (with Eddie and without), but Steve also knew he wasn’t ready to return to work yet. Whether it was his own insecurity about fitting in with a team whose dynamics had changed since he’d been gone for a few months, or nerves about returning to a life that, while rewarding, had also brought some very traumatic experiences with it, Steve didn’t know. So, he chose to reacquaint himself with the house he hadn't lived in for about ten weeks, the fresh smell of paint having thankfully been aired out through the windows with freshly painted trim. 

Steve really couldn't complain about the color scheme Danny had chosen. He knew Steve's tastes and he'd adhered to them; nothing ostentatious, nothing gaudy or inexplicably bad. Just nice, pale imitations of primary colors that livened the rooms up a little, and with all the death and mayhem the seemingly quaint, beach side home had seen over the years, even Steve had to admit that the house had needed a touch up. He and Danny had talked about the upstairs and how Steve wanted to paint the guest rooms, though Grace was adamant that one of them needed to be a nice, soft peach color. "It's a perfect guest room color, Uncle Steve," she'd said when she'd seen him at the party over the weekend. Steve hadn't known how the hell to respond to that, so he'd found himself nodding his head in agreement. He grinned as he remembered Charlie scrunching up his nose and stating in no uncertain terms that the color of the other room should be green.

And green it would be, a gentle and soothing lime to go along with the pale pallet Danny had chosen while Steve had been gone.

The thing was, Steve knew Danny was still mad at him because Steve _knew Danny_. Maybe not as royally pissed as he had been, but still. He knew that Danny was trying to move on, to just be happy and thankful that Steve was back, to not dwell on the fact that Steve had left him after only seven days of being free of the confines of sterile surroundings and men and women in scrubs carrying needles, even if Steve had been right beside him every waking moment. Danny was trying to cover any residual anger the way he always did - by obsessively worrying about Steve and asking after him and taking seriously any idea that would allow them to get some time alone so that Danny could give him a full psychological examination and deem him fit for duty, Danno approved.

Hence the vacation idea Danny had floated during the night of the team party, which Steve only kicked himself for, because he knew not being able to hide his flustered demeanor around Danny lately had been just one of many reasons why his partner had hopped on the opportunity Grace had suggested to him.

The truth was, it was damn near impossible for Steve to act as he normally would around Danny when all it seemed he'd wanted to do since the first night he'd had that dream (and the nights which followed) was find out if that sleepy scenario could be made into a reality. Before that night, he'd never, not once, not in any way shape or form, had ever dreamt about or thought of Danny as anything more than his best friend, his ride or die brother-in-arms, someone with whom Steve had considered himself lucky to be able to share his life and work with. Even accepting the obvious fact that Steve loved Danny unconditionally - that Danny was the most important person in the world to him - it had never occurred to Steve that it could or would ever be more than that. At least until he'd had to pull himself off after that dream, and a few more times since then.

Yeah. It became a little clearer after that.

So, of course Steve had been feeling anxious. The first few times Danny had come around him after that night, Steve hadn't been sure if he was going to pop a log or if he was going to be able to have a conversation like a normal human being, one who wasn't remembering his best friend's head disappearing under a tangle of sheets and comforters to give him the best phantom blow job of his life. And of course, Danny had noticed. Danny noticed everything. Besides being an astonishingly good detective, the man was a father with two kids who, angelic as they both usually were, had tried to pull off some doozies in their short lives. So, the idea that Danny wouldn’t notice something was off about his partner was, truly, wishful and foolish thinking on Steve’s part.

But what was Steve supposed to do about it? He couldn't out and out say that he was head over heels in love with Danny, but Steve also couldn't deny that there was literally nothing in the world he wouldn't do for him either. If Danny called him in the morning complaining that he didn't have enough milk for his coffee, Steve would be up and out of bed to hand deliver a carton to him. If Danny needed to rough up a fellow parent for not keeping a handle on their kid, Steve would be right beside him. Steve had been there, done that, had the t-shirt to prove it, or at least remembered the shirt he was wearing when Danny had blithely told him they were going to tail the father of the bully picking on Charlie at school, as if that was a totally normal, legal way of handling that particular issue. If Danny needed help getting rid of a body, Steve would grab his shovel, throw the body in the bed of his truck, and drive to a secluded little spot in the hills of Oahu he knew of and literally bury the problem. Again, been there, done that, and still so far as he knew, Marco Reyes’ body still hadn’t been found.

There was an undeniable love and trust between them, borne out of feeling each other out and then fused together ten years ago when Steve had been framed for Governor Jameson's murder and Danny had stayed in Hawaii to break him out, giving up that second chance with Rachel and having a family that Steve knew must've been part of Danny's reasoning for giving things with Rachel another go. It had literally taken a building dropping on their heads for them to utter those three, terrifying words: 'I love you'. No, maybe not in a romantic, I-want-to-marry-you-and-have-your-babies kind of way - which was kind of a good thing, because talk about awkward - but in the best-of-friends, I-have-your-back-to-the-end kind of way. It had only grown stronger since then.

And all of that was how Steve _knew_ , in his bones, right down to his very soul, that Danny was still peeved at him. It was the too-long stares Danny had been directing Steve's way; long, contemplative looks that told the story of one who had a lot to say but didn't quite know how to start the conversation. If Danny thought that Steve didn't see when Danny genuinely wanted to unload, but instead would do a remarkable impression of a goldfish, and, if Danny Williams, body-language expert and kick-ass detective extraordinaire, actually believed that Steve hadn't noticed him changing the subject anytime Steve's globetrotting exercise came up at every available opportunity, well then, Steve would have to sit Danny down and explain to him the principle of 'giving credit where credit was due'.

And all of _this_ was compounded by the fact that Steve had painted his bed sheets with pleasure, panting like a sex starved bachelor after waking from the dreams he’d had about Danny.

Danny, kissing Steve like he’d been abandoned in the desert and Steve’s mouth was a well-watered spring.

Danny, whose mouth, always on the move, had slipped down, down, down his chest, to his belly, biting playfully at muscular ridges crafted from years of intense training and physical excursion, down to another muscle, straining for just the flick of his tongue –

Steve’s phone vibrated angrily in his pocket and almost made him fling himself a foot into the air. He landed in a near crouch, chest pounding and blood rushing through his ears, not to mention other body parts. He’d seriously just been having a _sex daydream_ about Danny, in his living room, _in the middle of the day!_

“Get it together, McGarrett,” Steve muttered, fishing his phone out of his cargo shorts, doing his best not to brush against the slightly stiff bulge he couldn’t help but notice, and seeing who was calling. “Speak of the devil”. He put the phone to his ear. “Yes, Daniel?”

“Steve, we found him, we caught him.”

That seemed like rather important news, that Danny had caught this guy; great news even. “That’s great, Danny: Who’d you find?”

“That guy, that kid, the one who ran me and Joanna off the road a few months ago. He got pulled over for running a red light and the officer ran his tags, saw the BOLO description come up when the last three digits of the plate came back-“

Steve sucked in a breath and headed for the front door, grabbing his keys in route.

“I’ll be right there.”

**Hawaii Five-0**

Things at Headquarters hadn’t changed all that much.

After being swarmed by officers and palace staff welcoming him back (and maybe taking a few deep breaths in the elevator to recover in the realization of such obvious affection and approval of his return), Steve waited for the cold, silver doors of the elevator to reveal the familiar bullpen and wooden framing he'd left behind.

Everything still looked the same; the glass was clear and streak free, the fresh scent of Windex in the air, the black, tile floors were freshly waxed and the corridors free of any clutter, just as it had been when he'd left. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw a flash of purple and brown - Tani, he was pretty sure - dart from the office over to the smart table. She was energetic and focused as always, and Steve felt the familiar tug of needing to know what was going on, wanting to assume control, to command the situation. He tamped it down as he pulled on the door and stepped inside the bullpen proper.

Quinn spotted him first, offering an easy grin and nod his way, which queued everyone else around the table to stop what they were doing and stare in his direction; Steve suddenly felt as if he was standing under a microscope, or even better, back during his green days in the Navy, waiting for his commanding officer to walk the line for inspection. He lifted a wane hand. 

"Hi."

"Hi, yourself," Tani slipped easily to the side to lean against the table, Junior standing just behind her. "Danny's on the balcony if you’re looking for him."

"Yeah, thanks." Steve shoved both hands in his pockets, slowly edging forward as if he were expecting something to jump out from behind one of the mounted televisions. Inevitably, he couldn't stop his gaze from targeting his office - old office?

"I, uh... I don't have much in there," Lincoln offered, stepping a little closer as he watched Steve eye the space up and down. "If you want it back, just say the word. I can be packed in five minutes."

Steve considered that for a moment, and all the implications and questions it raised. Shelving the subject of his return for now, he settled on humor. "Yeah, that's why you're a marine and not a SEAL - we packed in half that time."

"Oh, someone's got jokes," Lincoln laughed good naturedly, and his bright smile brought one out of Steve too. He gestured towards the balcony. "Out there, huh?"

"Yeah," Adam affirmed. "Went out there after he got the news."

"It was either that or he was going to head down to rendition himself and use the guy as a punching bag." Lou said. "Pretty sure we'd have a homicide on our hands if we'd've let that happen."

Steve didn't doubt it. Danny wasn't a murderer - far from it. But he could kill, or severely maim if the situation was charged enough. Steve had watched his partner unflinchingly put a bullet in the leg of his Rick Peterson when his ex-partner had kidnapped his daughter, had hung back as Danny had executed Marco Reyes for killing his brother. Steve knew what Danny could do if the right buttons were pushed. His mission today was to make sure none of those buttons were pressed.

The team went back to what they’d been working on, Lincoln headed into his – Steve’s? – office, and Steve carried himself over to the doors of the balcony, opening them and stepping out into the bright Hawaiian sunlight. Already, he could see it was in stark contrast to Danny, whose mood he could puzzle out just by looking at the back of his partner’s blonde head. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

Steve slipped in beside him, leaning his arms on the railing and interlacing his fingers. “You know, we never used this balcony for much of anything. I pretty much forgot it was even here.”

“That’s actually surprising.”

“Why?”

“It’s a balcony,” Danny shrugged. “Figured you’d’ve done anything to jump from the ledge or try to scale down to the ground floor via the columns at least once, just to do it. Maybe make some kind of superhero obstacle course for all of us.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” Steve answered with a soft laugh. “You okay?” he asked a few seconds later.

“Am I okay?” Danny’s shoulders rose tightly as he sucked in a breath. “I don’t know. I don’t – all I want to do right now is go down to the basement and ask that kid why. Why didn’t he stop, why wasn’t he paying more attention… But if I ask him that, I also know I’m going to ask him if he saw what happened, if he saw us go over that ravine, and if he says yes, Steve…” Danny swallowed. “If he says yes and he just kept driving away like nothing happened, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Steve knew what Danny would do, and he suspected Danny did as well. “Look, Danny, why don’t you take the rest of the day off? Don’t make yourself go through this, man. Let Lou or Tani and Junior, or anyone else handle this.”

For a second, Steve was certain Danny was going to fight him on it. 

"Yeah," Danny finally muttered, “you're right."

Steve felt his own heart slow with relief and not a little surprise. He cleared the shock out his throat. "Well. Uh, good." Danny's answer was a noncommittal shrug, but Steve decided to take it as a win. "They'll probably need you to testify at his trial anyway. You know that's where you can do the real damage."

"Yeah, I can't wait to relive that day," Danny snarked, pushing back from the balcony. "I'll go tell them it's not gonna be me." He moved to do just that, but Steve stretched out a hand, holding him back.

"Why don't you let me tell them and you and me head out?"

Danny blinked once, twice, before stepping back and crossing his arms. "What'd you do."

"I didn't-"

"What'd you do?"

"I swear to God, Danny, I didn't do anything," Steve held his hands up. "I just think the sooner you leave, the better is all. You go grab your keys, I tell the team, and we book it. Simple, quick, easy.” 

"Oh, I see what this is," Danny's finger pointed towards him accusingly. Steve had never seen a more indictment possessed digit. "You think I won't be able to resist the temptation, so you want to remove temptation from me, is that it?"

And what with the dreams Steve had been having lately of his partner, Danny and any conjunction of the word 'tempt' was, perhaps, not the best combination. Steve barely managed to bite down the retort 'you'll always be tempting' to respond with a succinct and sheepish, "You caught me."

Which only seemed to heighten Danny's internal Steve-McGarrett-Is-Planning-Something-Crazy threat level. Steve could see it, he was ready for it, and he struck before Danny could call him in his far too quick capitulation.

"I need help with picking out the right colors Grace and Charlie want for the guest rooms."

Trump card played. Steve watched Danny analyze that sentence, every word and letter, every syllabic rhythm to be found within, but with his children being the direct objects of the statement, Danny wouldn't have it within him to deny the suggestion Steve was making. A slightly underhanded trick, and Steve didn't use it except in extreme moments like this one, where it was very possible that, left to his own devices, Danny might just find his way down to the rendition room and right into a ripe case of police brutality.

And Danny knew it too; his defeated, loud sigh was Steve's victory trumpet and his heart crowed silently in triumph.

"Fine. But before you leave, go check out your office while I get my stuff together."

Steve scrunched his nose. "Why?"

"Just go look at it." Danny tugged on the door and slipped through, leaving a confused Steve to follow behind him, scuffing the floor as she shuffled back in and towards his office.

And maybe, standing just five paces outside his office Steve figured out why Danny wanted him to have a quick duck in as he inched himself forward and pushed open the familiar, heavy glass door. "Hi," he greeted Lincoln awkwardly.

Sailors were taught to stand up at the drop of a hat when a commander entered the room and the marines were no different, though Steve found it debatable as to why Lincoln Cole would find him a superior officer. Nevertheless, Lincoln damn near snapped to attention at Steve's greeting.

"Commander McGarrett." Lincoln almost went into parade rest before stumbling out from behind the desk. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah; well, I'm pushing Danny out the door for the rest of the day. He thought I should come in and see what you've done with the place." 

"Well, not much," Lincoln indicated the pristine office surrounding them, and it was true. Not one thing had been touched; not the model ship on its presenting stand nor the commendations and shadow box hanging on the wall, and certainly not the picture of Joe White. It was just as Steve had left it, sturdy and resolute on the wall, just as the man portrait within the four framed borders had been.

"Told you I was just keeping it warm for you until you got back." Lincoln watched as Steve stopped in front of the simple memorial to his mentor. "Are you?"

"Hm?" Steve looked at him.

"Are you back?"

That was a good question. "Not yet." Steve finally answered.

**Hawaii Five-0**

It turned out that Danny took not only the rest of the day off but the following one too. Steve had woken up for his morning swim and gone downstairs to see Danny sacked out on the couch with Eddie sleeping at his feet. Steve had initially told Danny he could either bunk with him or outright have his bed, since they’d painted Junior’s room the afternoon before and left it to air out overnight. Danny had chosen the couch, saying he wanted to watch a game, but Steve had easily translated that into Danny wanting time alone to mull the day’s events. And so, Steve had found himself tossing and turning, and, after waking from a nightmare wherein he couldn’t find Danny no matter how hard he’d looked, had actually almost gotten out of bed to invite Danny back with him in the guise of wanting to make sure his partner didn’t wreck his back. But when he’d gone out to the landing and looked over the bannister, he saw Danny sound asleep, the light from the television flickering across his face. Steve had turned around and gone back to bed, eventually succumbing to a restless sleep.

When he’d finally woken up and gone for his morning swim, he traipsed wet and barefoot back into the house to see Danny still on the couch, only now with his back to the lanai and the rising sun, curled towards the back with a pillow over his head. Steve made a mental note that he should install some black out curtains to the windows lining the back of the house in the near future and set to brewing coffee and whipping up scrambled eggs, which roused Danny within fifteen minutes. Steve had just turned to pour the coffee from the French press into his mug to see Danny blearily make his way in, his hair a ridiculous mess and a zombie like gate to his stride that made Steve simply offer him the coffee without a fight and continue his egg-scrambling. Steve smiled to himself as he overheard Danny muttering about milk, along with an insulting comment about the tried and true grass fed better that was the condiment of SEAL’s the world over, and, finally, about chipper SEAL’s in the morning who loved nothing more than a full body worship of salt water that smelled like the sea.

“Well, it’s the ocean, Danny, it’s gonna smell like the ocean.”

“I don’t have to smell the ocean while I’m drinking my coffee though.”

“You do not,” Steve agreed readily. “You can go into the living room and sit on the couch and drink your coffee with Eddie without the refreshing aroma of the Pacific mixing with your strong Kona roast.”

And so the morning went. When Steve finally emerged from the kitchen and Danny hadn’t so much as mentioned going to work, Steve hadn’t questioned it. Instead, he suggested they start gutting the third bedroom so they could paint it and then turn it into a second guest room.

It was past noon now and they’d made some good progress in Steve’s estimation, even after Danny had found a photo album filled with pictures of Steve and Mary from when they were babies and had good naturedly poked at Steve’s pudgy cheeks and wild brown hair. Steve had taken it in good fun and eventually placed the album in his room before continuing on with the renovations.

“So, what do you think, huh?” Danny asked Steve as he came back in. “You think a full? Queen?”

Steve blinked.

“The bed?” Danny’s hand flapped at the now large, open space in the room.

“Oh.”

“You haven’t thought about it yet,” Danny rolled his eyes. 

“It’s a bed, Danny, I’ll just buy a bed.”

“What? No,” Danny stepped in front of Steve, hands up in the internationally known symbol of ‘time-out, let’s think about this’. “It’s not just ‘a bed’. A bed is where you spend one third of your life, my friend. A bed is a refuge away from the world, where you sleep at night, recharge, regroup, the place where, if you are like me, you’re thankful it exists because your partner used to put you in all kinds of crazy situations with bombs and boats that could never just be floating bastions of luxury, they always had to have something wrong with them, or on them, or in them-“

“Okay, okay, fine,” Steve surrendered, his own hands up now in the universal sign of ‘please, I’ll do whatever you want, just shut up’. “We’ll go look at a bed.”

Danny seemed to deflate. “Yes. Good.” He dropped his hands,

"Full's good,” Steve agreed, looking at the space. “I like full." He studiously ignored the look of suspicion being cast his way. 

"You've been very agreeable the past couple days. Why is that?"

"I got a lot of peace and quiet I kinda like it and want to keep it?"

"Jerk," Danny volleyed back easily. "So, what'd you think of your office?"

Steve frowned. "My office?"

"Yeah, your office, the one you have at work? The one I told you to go walk in and take a look around, see what Cole's done with it?"

"He hasn't done anything with it," Steve pointed out, which he also suspected was the point. Danny wasn't subtle; they both knew it.

"Ready and waiting for you to come back whenever you want, babe."

Steve didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to express the Jackson Pollock that was his thoughts on going back to work, back to Five-0. When he'd finally figured out that he was ready to come home, it was more so because he wanted to see his family again, to see Danny again, that he’d realized it would be much easier to work through the traumas he’d endured if he could lean on them just a little. It’d had nothing to do with him jumping back in the saddle and hunting down criminals and terrorists. His face must have resembled his uncertainty, because Danny was looking at him now with that kind of neutral expression that told the tale of a man forcing his own thoughts on the subject down in favor of listening to someone else’s. Danny had been doing that a lot lately, Steve once again reminded himself.

"I'm not sure when I want to come back yet, Danny." Steve said softly, hating how fragile his voice sounded. Seeing Danny smile at him reassuringly was even worse, even if it was a little tight around the corners. He shoved the guilt away, listened as Danny said, "That's okay," his response gentle, as if afraid to spook Steve if he showed even the slightest hint of disappointment. 

"I just," Steve licked his lips nervously, throat going dry with each passing second. He hadn't planned on discussing this yet, certainly not today in between picking out furniture and maybe putting the first coat of paint on the second guest room. Giving an itemized list of his jumbled thoughts about going back to work was quite possibly the very last thing Steve wanted to do. But Danny was asking him to. So. 

"My parents spent their lives in law enforcement and working for the government and look what happened to them, what it cost them. Look what happened to Joe. And don't get me wrong, I... I love what I did with Five-0, what I did in the Navy, the SEAL's, all of it. I wouldn't trade it for anything." He swallowed. "But I think about Mom and Dad and Joe, what they sacrificed, what their careers did to them, what it did to the people in their lives and..."

"... and you feel like you got a wake up call," Danny finished quietly for him. Steve didn't confirm it and he didn't have to. He watched Danny inch forward until he was so close that Steve actually had to tilt his neck just that little bit to maintain eye contact with him. 

“You know, can’t help but think that those are the words of a guy who might not want to come back to work.”

“Danny-“

"What happened wasn't your fault, Steve. I told you that."

"It doesn't matter if it was my fault or not, Danny," Steve whispered tightly. "It still happened. I still -" He breathed hard, once, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. Pleasure filled dreams of Danny had only started recently, but the nightmares of his partner's kidnapping had plagued Steve for nearly three months. His mind was a constant movie of Danny hanging from a ceiling, battered and bloody and bruised, or lying in a hospital bed, or on the floor of a dusty, dirty wooden floor, or in Steve's arms in the back of his truck; Steve would give anything to have those images wiped from his memory. “I _am_ coming back, Danny, I’m coming back to Five-0, I am. I just – I don’t know when, or-“

Someone was shushing and comforting him and murmuring something that sounded like "okay, it's okay, babe, I'm okay, you're okay" and so on and so forth, and before he knew it, Steve was enfolded in security and warmth and everything he'd been missing or three months, longer than three months, and he grabbed onto it. Steve held onto it tight, hiding his face low in Danny's shoulder. He didn't care if his neck hurt later, didn't care what Danny thought of it, if he read something more into it; Steve needed this, Danny was offering it, and he was taking it.

"You come back when you’re ready to come back, okay? _If_ you want to come back, and if you don’t that’s okay too, Steve." Danny tugged back just a little, and Steve let him, but he didn't let him go far. "Hey, how about that vacation, huh?

Steve blinked; an odd subject change, but okay, he’d go along with it.

"The vacation? The one Grace said we should go on? The one where you said that you'd already been on a vacation and didn't see the point?" Danny looked up at Steve earnestly, and Steve felt his head nod itself up and down dumbly.

"You and me," Danny continued. "You and me, let's... we'll take a long weekend somewhere, unwind, and... you know, talk, hang out; just vacay."

That got a snort out of Steve, the combination of Danny holding him floating the idea again that he and Steve should just take some time to chill out, together, another bro-cation if one would, serving to calm Steve enough that his body didn't feel quite so small and his skin didn't feel quite as tight. "Vacay?"

"Do not mock my vocabulary," Danny admonished him gravely. 

"I would never," Steve replied, just as solemnly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I desperately needed to tie up the loose end that was Danny's car accident, especially since now we'll never see that story line resolved, which only makes me all the more irked that the series ended - so many loose ends, so many holes, so many stories that needed to be finished off that never well be, thanks to an EP who cared more about himself and his own story desires than he did about the characters and actors who made the show possible.
> 
> *Deep breath*
> 
> Anyways! I had been looking for a way to kind of round that plot out, and I was glad I was able to do it in this fic.
> 
> Thanks for all the comments so far!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy weekend all. Here's Chapter 4!
> 
> _Disclaimer: Hawaii Five-0 and the characters found within the series are owned by CBS Productions, K/O Paper Products, and 101st Street Productions. No profit is being made off of this work._

It was another three weeks before Danny and Steve could steal away. 

Five-0 caught a case that found them traipsing through every back alley and seedy club on Oahu to find a slightly disturbed individual who seemed to think that the only way to save the young, innocent women of Honolulu from their ‘poor’ choices in refusing his advances for a dance or a drink was to kill them. The case had been hard on the entire team, but especially so for Danny and Lou. Danny saw Grace’s face in the two girls they’d found – young, beautiful, college aged and with all the promise of a long and rewarding life that had been snatched cruelly and violently from them. He knew Lou had seen Samantha just as easily. Needless to say, it was a case everyone was looking forward to forgetting in a hurry.

In the middle of that horror, one Trevor Anthony Farris was arraigned on multiple charges, not the least of which included Second Degree Vehicular Manslaughter, which carried an all-expenses paid trip to Halawa for five years. Danny thought the sentence for that alone was far too little, which was why he was happy to hear that Ellie Clayton had also thrown in two counts of felony Hit and Run – one for Joanna, and one for himself, which could earn young Mr. Farris another fifteen years. As the charges were read out, Danny sat in the court gallery with Steve beside him, who held his hand for support, and to ensure that Danny didn’t vault over the pew to met out some justice of his own. When the judge denied bail and remanded Farris to Halawa to await his next hearing, Danny visibly slumped in his seat, relief pouring from him, including his eyes, which he did his best to hide.

“If he’d stopped to help you both, it’s likely he’d have been released on his own recognizance, or would have at least made bond, may have even gotten the manslaughter charge bumped down,” Ellie said once the arraignment was over. “But his decision to leave you and your passenger behind speaks to his willingness to avoid accountability, not to mention his wanton disregard for human life. I promise you, Danny; he will be going to jail for a long time for what he did to you, and to Joanna.”

“No plea deals on this one, Ellie, right?” Steve asked. Ellie shook her head. “No deals.”

Danny thanked her quietly and remained silent all the way back to Steve’s.

To escape the latest murders and the memories of Danny’s near fatal car accident, Danny helped Steve during whatever free time he had with finishing painting the third bedroom, ordering furniture, and taking trips to the dump to dispose of the hoarded junk they found that Steve no longer wanted. With both Junior’s room and the third bedroom painted, they started on the upstairs hallway and the wall leading up to the second floor landing after finally agreeing on an updated vanilla cream color that Steve favored and not simply continuing on the icy blue pallor Danny had chosen for the living room. Danny would’ve normally griped and argued himself into the ground for his preference, but Steve liked the contrast and was genuinely enjoying the project, so he didn't protest too much. Relatively speaking. 

Junior would help them out on the occasion he was at Steve’s place and not with Tani, but those days (and nights) were far and few between, leaving Danny to take the things he'd stored in Steve's room while he'd been gone and move them into Junior's, which, one day, finally led to him making a bet with Steve that by the end of the summer, Junior would be moving his things out of Steve's place and into Tani's. Steve had (somewhat dishearteningly, but with full Navy SEAL hooyah-brotherhood) taken the bet, telling Danny (entirely unconvincingly, in Danny's opinion) that Junior would be there at least until the holidays, and then had countered Danny’s wager with one of his own: that Danny would eventually move in with Steve full time. Permanently. Danny wasn’t sure if he saw a bit of a flirtatious lilt to Steve’s grin as he listened to Steve list off the reasons why he was certain he’d be entertaining Danny as more than a house guest sooner rather than later.

“You spent all your time over here anyways, Danny; you have since last Thanksgiving, and everyone told me you barely stayed at your place while I was gone. And you like the beach now, the whole island life thing – you love it. It makes total sense for you to move in here with me and sell your house. It’s gonna happen. You watch.”

Danny had painted a stripe of cream on Steve’s shirt in response and continued his careful trimming of the baseboards, completely ignoring the fact that he’d pretty much just flirted back with Steve. If Steve had been flirting with him at all.

Anyway.

The subject of Steve returning to Five-0 hadn’t come up again, but he had offered a few tips to Danny on how to deal with the governor’s office and the press during the night club murders. He seemed especially attentive when Danny would walk in the door of Steve’s house at eight, nine, or sometimes ten o’clock at night (if not later). Danny would find Steve waiting up for him, more often than not with food and beer at the ready, a listening ear on full offer and advice to be shared if desired. 

It was nice. In fact, Danny was eager to go ho – to go to Steve’s, now, more than he had been in the past. He’d forgotten what it was like to have someone to go home to.

Not that Steve was _someone to go home to_ , but…

Anyway.

Once Danny had worked through his hurt at Steve leaving and his shock at stumbling upon him in the garage the night he’d come back, a warm, full-filled feeling had taken root in his temperamental Jersey heart ever since. In fact, it had only grown, metastasizing until it filled every pour of Danny’s Irish/Italian skin and was embedded into his soul. Danny found himself wanting to be at Steve’s place, in his space, in his face, as much as humanly possible, and not just to make sure the crazy Neanderthal didn’t leave again. Maybe Steve hadn’t found his peace yet, but Danny had certainly found _his_. He might never have Steve in the way his heart beat with hope that he could one day, but so long as Steve stayed on the island, so long as Steve stayed with _him_ , Danny knew he would be stupidly happy to live in Hawaii for the rest of his life, pineapples, sand, and all.

“God, I’m in so much trouble,” Danny groaned as he packed up his suitcase, looking around his room. He’d had to come back to at least do his and Charlie’s laundry and pick the place up, but as he’d moved between rooms, dumping clothes into the washer and pulling them out of the dryer, folding them, and placing them back in their respective closets, Danny couldn’t shake the feeling of the house being cold and empty without Steve there, or at least without the knowledge that Steve would be walking through the door any second. He’d gone so long without his best friend’s presence that Danny may as well be addicted to Steve, now that he’d subjected himself to overdoses of his company. His heart did that stupid double thump thing, and he frowned down at his chest.

“You stop that,” he grumbled.

 _Anyway_.

This trip was going to be good. It would be good for him, good for Steve, good for _them_. They would talk, and reconnect, and maybe Danny would finally be able to convince Steve that everything that had happened with Daiyu Mei wasn’t his fault, and if Danny had to be tortured by the sight of Steve sleeping in a different bed just feet away and the fact that he’d likely never be able to crawl in beside him to spoon him throughout the night and wake him in the morning with full bodied, passionate kisses, then Danny would swallow that verdict and hang on to Steve any way the big goof would let him.

And if that meant selling his house and moving in with Steve, then so be it. Steve didn’t have to know that though. Not yet.

**Hawaii Five-0**

The flight to The Big Island was blissfully short, but that didn’t stop Steve from plugging his earbuds in and turning on the playlist Grace had sent him. And Danny knew it was Grace’s playlist because he watched the songs he’d suggested (see: ordered) his daughter to tell Steve to add to it flash on the phone’s screen one by one. So while Steve listened to music and dozed, Danny flipped through a few vacation magazines he’d found in the pouch of the seat ahead of him and occupied himself with articles about The Big Island and the area he and Steve would be staying in for the next few days. 

It was nice, Danny figured, if one enjoyed black lava rock instead of grass for a lawn. But Steve had said that Kailua was a natural, historical wonder and that it needed to be experienced in its full glory, and if full glory meant that Danny would be walking on cold coals on his vacation, then fine; so long as Steve was there right next to him, Danny would've been happy to visit the national volcano park if his partner wanted. Not that he'd said as much to Steve because let's face it - volcanoes were harrowing danger zones and therefore, a homing beacon to someone like Steve, who would think such a place 'fun' and 'interesting' and 'educational', exclamations that Danny would combat with more than a few adjectives and examples of his own, not the least of which would be Google images from the last few years of molten lava steaming along streets and washing over unsuspecting cars and houses.

No thank you.

After they'd landed and collected their luggage, they took an Uber on a scenic route to their vacation rental. It was a quaint little house with views of the ocean, and black, rocky terrain substituting for lush, green grass at least in the backyard, just as Steve had promised, and was a good half mile away from the next house. Still...

"Not bad," Danny offered, looking around the living room after depositing his bags in one of the bedrooms nearby. "Very nice; nice TV, too." And it was a very nice, very large flat screen television, mounted on a neutrally cream wall with a cherry wood entertainment center just beneath, hiding a DVD and Blu-Ray player inside, along with more than a few movies and TV series box sets. 

"The lanai space isn't bad either, and there’s a grill," Steve called, from said lanai, and Danny ambled over, hands in pockets and now barefoot, to have a look. "Well, I guess you gotta have a big lanai if your yard is full of charcoal. Kinda begs the question why they even have a grill. I mean, we can just set up a grate on the rocks over there and make up a couple of steaks, huh?" 

Steve grinned. “Look at you, getting all rustic.”

They settled in, looking through the travel booklets their host had provided, and on their phones while lounging on a patriotic red couch with the aforementioned very nice television playing a re-run of some cop show in the background. A hike was definitely in Danny's future if the information he was scrolling through about the surrounding area was any indication; he simply accepted it as a given if he was with Steve anywhere there were dirt trails surrounded by vegetation, so instead of grumbling about it as he normally would've, he actually picked the hike they'd take. If Steve was suspicious about Danny’s initiative, he didn't let on, but no way was Danny going to hike the equivalent of a double black diamond trail and wind up in the middle of a ready-to-erupt volcano, or, for that matter, in traction.

Dinner was spent at one of the restaurants the area offered, and the guys chose the one closest to their house. They may have been on vacation, but they'd taken a late flight and the desire that would've been there a few years ago to explore their temporary digs had been replaced in favor of an easy meal and relaxing with beers. Danny was actually looking at the dessert menu when he felt Steve staring at him. "What?"

"Nothing," Steve shrugged casually, "you just never look at that." He pointed at the menu in Danny’s hands.

"I do, sometimes," Danny was eyeing a triple chocolate mousse cake which looked like it might just possess an entire week's caloric value. What the hell - it was vacation, right? Decision made, he snapped the booklet shut and handed it to their server as she walked by, ordering the cake and folding his arms over his chest as he looked at Steve, as though showing he was a man secure in the life choice he'd just made. Steve shook his head, a grin playing at his lips. "You're not gonna eat all of that."

"Correct, that’s why you're going to help me."

"Pardon?"

"We're on vacation, Steven," Danny reminded him slowly, as if talking to a child. Steve frowned, but more so in confusion than disapproval at Danny's tone. "And on vacation, we eat what we want."

"But-"

"No." Danny held a finger up, as imperious as its owner in the moment. "No buts."

Steve blinked, then folded his hands in his lap and looked at their server, who had the same expression on her face as everyone else got watching him and Danny argue. "Could we also have some coffee, please?" As the server walked away, Danny just looked at Steve. "What?" His partner shrugged. "I can't eat chocolate cake and not have coffee, Danny."

"People usually drink milk with chocolate cake, but okay, whatever," Danny leaned back, fingers interlaced on his stomach as he and Steve continued to chat until the cake arrived. Danny found himself thankful that he'd browbeat Steve into sharing it with him, because his initial feeling had been entirely correct; the cake was almost the size of his whole head. He was never going to finish that thing by himself. Hell, even with help from Steve, it was a tall order, which was proven a short while later with nearly half of the cake still sitting on the stylish white plate, streaks of chocolate syrup and crumbs the remains of a valiant but no less foolish attempt at conquering the challenge he’d ordered for himself.

"Okay, so maybe I didn’t think it'd be _that_ rich," Danny confessed while Steve took the bill book and put his credit card inside. His eyebrows climbed. "You're paying?"

Steve looked at him like he'd grown two heads. "Yes?"

Danny’s eyes squinted just that little bit. "You feeling okay?"

"Thank you," Steve handed the book back to the server and looked back at Danny. "I can pay for things, Danny."

"Yes, yes, I know that you _can_ , I know that you are capable, very able to physically part with money; most of us have that ability, even the ones who act like they can’t. It's the act of you doing so _willingly_ that gives me pause."

The debate continued on through Steve signing the receipt, and Danny actually recording him doing so on his cell phone for posterity's sake. He stopped short at sending it to the team though, even when Steve tried goading him into doing so. "Send them proof that I can actually pay for the tab," Steve urged, but Danny shook his head and slipped his phone into his back pocket. "Nah, I think I'll keep that rare sighting to myself. It's kind of like Big Foot - even if you show people evidence, they probably won't believe you."

"You're stupid," Steve answered petulantly.

The walk back to the house was spent making plans for the next day, at least until Rachel called, a sweet lilt to her voice that Danny recognized as her wanting something and knowing she needed to butter him up to get it. So, he made it easy for her.

"No."

" _No_?" Her confused voice carried from the phone to Steve's ears and Danny flipped on the speaker because why shouldn’t his partner get to witness this spat of ex-spouses for himself? " _You don't even know what I'm going to say yet_!"

"But I know that tone in your voice. I was married to it for years, and it almost always ended up with me doing something or going someplace or talking with people that I really, really didn't want to."

" _If I might remind you, you were the one who said you wanted to meet Mark_ ," Rachel reminded, and Danny could just see her rolling her eyes on the other end of the line. Steve lifted an entertained eyebrow. " _And why am I on speaker phone_?"

"It's just Steve, Rache; we're on vacation, remember?"

" _Oh, well, I suppose this would involve him too._ "

Steve suddenly didn't look so entertained. "Um, why me?"

" _Because I mentioned to Mark that Danny wanted to meet him, and that both he and you work for Five-0 - or, well Danny you lead it now and I assume you will return to work at some point Steven - all of which is to say that, if he wins the governorship, he will have oversight of your task force. So, he thought it would be best to have dinner with the both of you_."

Steve suddenly became _very_ interested in the conversation, and not just for entertainment’s sake. "Yeah, I can think of a few dozen reasons why that would be a really bad idea."

" _Oh? Why is that_?"

"Because there are two other candidates running for governor and I don't need Five-0 getting pulled into the politics," Steve responded. "We serve at the pleasure of whoever sits in that chair, and the worst thing I can think of is for me and Danny to meet with Congressman Erickson, someone snaps a photo, and before I know it, I've got press breathing down my neck about an endorsement and two other candidates pissed at me, all of which affects the effectiveness of my team doing their jobs." Danny nodded along silently to everything and added, “Yeah, Steve's right; we have to work for whoever wins, Rachel."

" _Well_ ," came her thoughtful voice, " _perhaps we have a small dinner together here_?"

"Here?" Danny asked, looking up at Steve.

" _Yes, here, at my house_." Rachel clarified. " _I'll cook. Or we can order in and you boys can build forts and sword fight with cardboard paper towel rolls; whatever it is you need to do to get to know each other._ "

"Cute," Danny muttered, lifting a questioning brow at Steve, who shrugged. "Dinner at your place sounds good. We'll set it up when we get back?"

" _Of course. I'll talk to you then_."

Danny ended the call and slumped forward. "I really don't want to meet this guy," he grumbled, following Steve as he led them both back to their rental, continuing to gripe and moan and groan the entire way. Steve listened (because what else could he do?) right up to them getting to the front door and looked at his partner while he fished the keys out of his pocket. 

"You never know, Danny, you might wind up liking the guy."

"I can pretty much guarantee that if this politician winds up marrying my ex-wife and dragging my kids into a life of bodyguards and campaign rallies that I am definitely not going to end up 'liking this guy'." Danny quoted his fingers in the air for effect, dropping his hands in defeat as he followed Steve into the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those asking, yes, I've already started on the dinner between Rachel, Mark, Danny, and Steve, and I am having a blast with it :D


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little chapter this time. Don't worry. The next one is longer.
> 
> For reasons.
> 
> :D

Sleep came easily for Danny, but not so much for Steve. The first few hours were easy, but sometime around three thirty in the morning, Steve woke with a racing heart and heavy breathing, the memory of finding Danny dead on the floor of the house he'd been held in fading away with every blink of his weary, anxious eyes, at least for now. He scrubbed shaky hands over his face and forced himself to calm down. It had been a little over a month since he'd had that particular nightmare, and Steve figured that being home, being around Danny so much, seeing the kids and his ohana, that that had been the cure he'd needed.

Apparently not.

He wasn't going back to sleep, not after that hellscape, so he rolled out of bed quietly and padded across the floor and out of his room into the living area. The door to Danny's bedroom was open, and Steve peaked in, just to reassure himself that Danny was there, safe and sound; he was, curled in on himself, clutching an extra pillow as if it were an extra person, breathing deep and even. Instead of entertaining thoughts on wishing that he were the pillow, Steve watched his partner's chest rise and fall with each peaceful breath, feeling his heart rate finally slow down as it followed the rhythm Danny created as he slept on, watching his lax face and his lids flutter just a little. _Probably dreaming_ , Steve figured, and with the moonlight filtering through the sheer curtains, Steve thought the image in front of him was the most beautiful he'd seen in a long, long time. His heart lurched a bit in his chest, this time from want and warmth, and maybe in not a little disbelief that he’d left Danny for so long. Steve backed away towards the couch and laid down, his head towards the end which allowed him to see into Danny's room, and let the sound of Danny's breathing lull him back to sleep.

The next time Steve woke, it was to the sun in his eyes and Danny sitting in the recliner, knees up to his chest and a thoughtful look on his face lined with worry and a touch of confusion. "Morning," he greeted. Steve sniffed, smelling something.

"I made eggs," Danny shrugged, and Steve noticed there was indeed a plate with bits of egg left on it balanced skillfully on his partner’s legs. He frowned. "Where'd you get eggs?"

"Little market down the street," Danny leaned forward to set the plate on the coffee table. "We're gonna be here a few days, we have a little galley kitchen over there. Might as well put it to some use." He leaned back, folding his hands in his lap. "Why are you sleeping out here?"

Steve blinked. "I'm not sleeping now."

Danny allowed an unhappy smirk to slide across his face at the sidestep. "Okay, so why _were_ you sleeping out here?"

There was nothing in the world that was harder for Steve than talking about his inner most sacred thoughts and feelings, so even considering telling Danny that he'd had another nightmare where there'd been enough of Danny's blood spilled to fill the lagoon at the Hawaiian Hilton was enough to make Steve's stomach roll. "I just..." he swallowed and trailed off, rubbing at his face again.

Obviously realizing that this conversation was a hopeless endeavor, Danny stood up, shoulders tense with disappointment as he carried his plate over to the the kitchenette. Steve watched him splash about in the sink until the plate, pans, and silverware were dry and then turn around, reaching for a paper towel. "You want to go to that national park place?"

Steve scrunched his still half-asleep forehead. "Pu'uhonua o Hōnaunau?"

"Yeah, sure, there," Danny shrugged. No way was he going to even attempt to pronounce it.

"You want to go, for real?"

"I mean, why not? It's something to do, we're here," Danny shrugged again and tossed the paper towel in the trash. Steve had not one good argument against him, and figured that it would be much better to explore the island with Danny than to sit in the house and continue to watch the in-brain movie that his worst fears kept supplying.

Before long they were traipsing around a national park whose name Danny still couldn't properly pronounce no matter how many times Steve coached him, and which made him finally decide to nickname the attraction 'PH'. "I figure if I get at least the first letters of each word right, I'm halfway there," Danny explained as he shuffled through the trails and rocky terrain. Steve was proud of him for trying, at least.

The refuge was a splendor all on its own, partially white sand on one side, with a Heiau between the flat, sandy ground and a blanket of lava rock leading into the ocean on the other, vegetation poking through here and there. The Great Wall formed the perimeter and within were all the trappings of an ancient Hawaiian village: the Heiau, which was mostly lava rock now; the grounds reserve for the royal family which were literally called the ‘Royal Grounds’ and also included its own pond; and, a recreation and restoration of the _hale poki_ , a sacred, consecrated temple and the only one left in the compound. Danny pointed out the large, tribal like sculptures which were placed in specific areas of the restored land. “This is like Easter Island,” he said, standing in front of the sculptures. “Like, a mini one, at least.” Steve laughed, informed him they were called _ki’I_ , and led him around the north side to look at the structures from a different angle. 

“Hey, look,” Danny pointed at a flat slab of rock with several tiny stones sitting atop it in rows. “What is this, some kind of game?”

“Yeah, it’s called _Konane_. The flat stone underneath is the board, called a _papamu._ ” Steve grinned. “It’s kind of like checkers or chess.”

“Oh, so you’d be bad at then.”

“I would actually be really good at it,” Steve volleyed back, leading Danny away from the game and towards the temple model a hundred yards away or so. Danny followed behind, seeing what looked like a canoe come into view. “So, this place is like what a real Hawaiian village back in the day would look like, huh.”

Steve nodded. “Pretty much. They’ve done a really good job with restoring and recreating it. And this place is still used a lot by the descendants of those who used to live here. They still have ceremonies to this day honoring them and Lono.”

Danny inspected a canoe a little closer while he listened. “Who’s Lono?”

“The Hawaiian god of life,” Steve supplied, watching Danny with a warm feeling in his chest. Ten years ago, trying to get Danny to a place like this would’ve required tying him up, throwing him in the trunk of a car, and pushing him around while strapped to a wheelchair. “Back in ancient times, this place was a sanctuary, a refuge for people who had broken the law. They came here for protection. If they made it past the Great Wall, Hawaiian law protected them. They couldn’t be touched, so long as they stayed in the borders of the sanctuary.”

“So, kind of like a few years ago when we were trying to find a suspect and he ran to that independent city, right?”

“The Independent Nation of Hawaii,” Steve supplied, “and kind of. That guy was safe with them if he had broken one of our laws, but if he’d broken one of their laws, he’d have had to face the music with them. There would’ve been no sanctuary for him to run to, not like this place.”

They spent the morning and the better part of the afternoon exploring the sanctuary until Danny’s stomach rumbled. Steve heard it from nearly five feet away and suggested they wrap up their visit and grab some food. Danny didn’t ask where Steve was taking them, content to let his partner lead the way, but when their Uber pulled up to what looked like a little house with a sign on top that read ‘The Coffee Shack’, Danny very nearly threw himself at Steve to kiss him, but aborted the movement at the last moment. Steve grinned, noticing. “Happy?”

“Babe, any place named The Coffee Shack is by definition perfect.”

Two cups of one hundred percent Kona coffee and what even Danny had to admit was a very decent club sandwich later, he and Steve caught another Uber back towards their rental. “Hey,” he knocked Steve on the arm lightly, “let’s stop by that little market real quick.”

“What for?”

“They got movies back at the house."

"So?"

"So," Danny waved his hands, "movie night. And to watch movies, we need popcorn and beer."

They ended up getting quite a bit more than popcorn and beer. While Steve paid a visit to his natural habitat, a.k.a., the meat department, Danny made his way towards the seafood. Knowing Steve wouldn't be able to resist choosing a few of the many delectable cuts of prime beef on display, Danny snagged some shrimp and two lobster tails. Steve was still perusing his choices when Danny walked up, seafood sitting snugly in his basket. "We do have the grill," he reminded, watching Steve, who had a look on his face that might be better fitted for complex math problems or figuring out the coordinates for a missile strike than selecting a cut of steak. Danny saw Steve's forehead crease all the more, and he rolled his eyes. "I can go see what kind of spices this place has, do a dry rub overnight and we can have some surf and turf for dinner tomorrow, huh?"

Steve gave an agreeable grunt, still too distracted by all the tender, red juiciness in front of him. With a shake of his head, Danny went off in search of spices and was still perusing the selection when Steve strolled up to him, pleased as punch and clutching a package wrapped in brown packing paper as if it were something precious.

And, after all, steak. So, Danny supposed it _was_ something precious, at least to a caveman like Steve. Still, he couldn't help but needle him about it. "You carrying nuclear codes there?"

"You go ahead and mock me now, but when you put this in your mouth, you'll be a very happy man."

And, oh, how Danny tried, tried so _very_ hard not to take that in a way other than what was intended, but as he raised a surely eyebrow Steve's way, he saw reddish hue tinged with a distinct shade of embarrassing realization at the covert implication. And hey, they were two guys on a bro-cation; what guy hadn't made a stupid 'put it in your mouth' kind of joke at one or two points in his life?

That said, Danny certainly didn't mind the insinuation either. He cleared his throat. Steve coughed, and, if it were possible (and it was because, hey, Steve), actually made it worse:

"I meant the meat."

Danny actually hooted out loud (because he was a guy, and truly, his inner lizard brain couldn't help but find it a little bit funny that Steve had just made it worse) and turned away to save Steve from seeing his face flush a bright red. "Steve, please, I beg you; stop while you're ahead."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may have discovered, I love researching locations I use in my fics, and Pu'uhonua o Hōnaunau is no different. It was fascinating to learn about this once sanctuary, and if I ever get enough money together one day, I am definitely going to visit. You can learn more about Pu'uhonua o Hōnaunau at the following links:
> 
> https://www.nps.gov/puho/index.htm
> 
> https://www.nps.gov/puho/learn/historyculture/hale-o-keawe.htm
> 
> This was actually one of my favorite chapters to write, because once again, I got to research a place that I want to visit someday and learn about a culture so important to U.S. and world history, and an interesting culture to boot!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Adorable fluff and softness ahead.

Steve was warm. Not an abnormal feeling - he lived in Hawaii - but this was a different kind of warmth, more to do with comfortable and _safe_ than temperature. There was a heated weight draped over his left side, unknown, yet familiar. Steve blinked open his eyes, crusted over from sleep, and tilted his neck just slightly, enough so that his chin brushed up against soft hair belonging to a person sleeping on top of him. His arm gently squeezed Danny before Steve even realized it, as if to reassure himself that this wasn't a dream. The beer bottles and left-over bowl of popcorn sitting on the coffee table was confirmation that was the result of a well enjoyed evening.

They'd had their movie night, their evening of 'just putzing around' as Danny put it, and it had been one of the best nights - one of the best days, really - that Steve had had in a long, long time. They'd polished off the beers they'd bought along with most of the popcorn, and it turned out that traipsing around ancient Hawaiian sanctuaries made Danny a tired boy. Steve thought back through a memory fuzzy with alcohol, at his partner resting his head on his shoulder, and Steve, like he always did, offering himself as a willing pillow with no complaints. It felt good to have Danny lean against him, and it had felt even better when Steve had tugged Danny to lay down with him on the couch as the movie continued to play out. They'd fallen asleep like that, two grown men, each fairly stocky, taking up every stitch of cloth available on a too small couch, and Steve had never felt cozier, never felt more content than he did in that moment as Danny slept on, Steve's thumb absentmindedly stroking over his side as he listened to each deep, peaceful breath Danny took.

There was something about lying quietly in the middle of the night, with the moon light streaking through the blinds of the lanai doors and holding someone who meant the world to you, the _most important person in the world_ , knowing they were safe and happy.

"Mmf."

Steve felt the blonde head resting so perfectly on his chest shift and swallowed a noise of protest at the prospect of Danny moving, but absolutely kept his arm where it was, because only Danny's head had moved, not the rest of him, and if Steve had any say about it, he was going to try and keep the rest of Danny exactly as he was for as long as possible. "Hey," he whispered, gentling Danny softly as his partner woke.

"Why're you 'wake," came Danny's sleep roughed question, and while that voice did funny things to Steve, it was nothing compared to the tip of Danny's nose brushing the underside of Steve's jaw as he craned his neck up to look at him, two bright, sleepy blue eyes peering at him in the pale light of the Hawaiian moon. Steve felt a jolt down his spine and knew there was no way that Danny couldn't have felt the same. Any hope that he hadn't vanished for Steve when Danny asked in the same gravelly voice "Wa's wrong?"

"Nothing," Steve tightened his hold just a little more against the sleep warm side of his partner, barely resisting burrowing further into the little nook he and Danny had created; he was more than relieved when Danny folded himself back down and tucked his head against Steve’s shoulder.

“You know, instead of doing the whole ‘not gonna talk about my feelings’ routine, I wish you’d just tell me what’s going on with you.” Danny may have been mumbling into the soft fabric of Steve’s Navy t-shirt, but ten years of learning the various dialects of a Danno had trained Steve’s ears well in deciphering everything from hysterical shouting to angry ranting to middle of the night muttering, and it was a good thing too, because Danny wasn’t done. “I wake up this morning and you’re sleeping on the couch, you didn’t want to talk about why you weren’t sleeping in that nice, big bed over there in your room. You’ve been anxious since you got back.” Steve looked down as Danny lifted his head to look up at him. “Last time you were acting like this, being all cagey, not sleeping, bouncing off the walls, you left home for over two months-“

“I’m not leaving again, Danny,” Steve breathed quietly, “I promise.” That seemed to mollify his partner enough; Steve didn’t make promises lightly, and every single one he’d ever made, he’d kept. He clutched the heavy warmth on his chest as Danny settled in again, this time wrapping his outer arm over Steve’s stomach. Maybe it was in gratitude for the extra contact, maybe it was knowing that he was always able to tell Danny anything, maybe it was just the intimate feeling of the moment, Steve didn’t know, nor did he care. He just found himself admitting quietly, “I’ve been having nightmares.” Danny made a sound of acknowledgement, shifting a bit.

“’Bout what?”

Talking about this was absolutely worse than dreaming it, Steve decided. Talking about it made it real. But it was either give voice to the nightmares that had been plaguing him or continue to let Danny think (wrongly) that Steve was planning on catching the next plane out of Hawaii, and that was completely unacceptable. So, Steve closed his eyes and trapped Danny against him with both of his arms in a hold that was meant to comfort and reassure him as much as it was Steve. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, and Danny could probably hear it too, with his head still resting in the crook of Steve's arm and chest. “You," Steve finally breathed, or maybe choked out. "I either can’t get to you, or I can’t find you, or I find you too late. Daiyu Mei’s there every time, and every time, I know how it ends. And I can’t stop it.”

The moon was almost like the spotlight in those old film noir movies, where the suspect would sit in an old wooden chair with a detective standing over them, the cop’s wide tie tilting away from his body and a cigarette between two fingers, and above them both, a dangling lamp casting a bright hue for the poor schmuck who'd managed to find himself in such a place.

Steve felt like that schmuck, though Danny, who was still quietly absorbing Steve's confession, was slacking on his role of 'interrogator'.

"For me, it was when Wo Fat would come around," Danny suddenly admitted, tilting his chin up. Steve could see the sharp line of his nose, his creased forehead as Danny looked up at him, and gave him a questioning scrunch of his face in response. Danny shrugged. "Whenever he popped his head out of his super-secret super villain lair, you'd lose your mind. You'd just become this robot, you know. This mechanical guy who barely ate or slept - everything was about Wo Fat. It was hard enough to sleep when he was running around, and it was impossible if he got his hands on you. I mean, you'd always come back, but you didn’t exactly come back in prime condition, and we know I’m not the most optimistic of people on the best days. My imagination kinda worked overtime, especially when I tried to sleep. So." 

"You never said anything."

"What was I gonna say to you?" Danny lifted up, now hovering over Steve. "It's like I told you when you got mad about me not telling you I was worried about you after you got radiation poisoning. It was my problem; you couldn't do anything about it. You got enough to deal with, so why am I gonna saddle you with my issues?"

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Steve was sure he had an answer for Danny, but he couldn't quite find it because his attention was more so on Danny looking down at him, half way using Steve as a bed while Steve held him, and suddenly the intimacy of the moment, of lying in the dark, having whispered conversations with his partner, with nothing but the moonlight and the gentle swells of the waves outside, slammed into Steve's chest. He felt his heart stop, and an unbidden shudder escaped, and there was no way that Danny didn’t feel that. "Steve?"

A new kind of panic took root in Steve at the thought of Danny being able to read his mind - because, let's face it, it's not like Danny hadn't done it before and vice versa - and recognizing their current state, not to mention him feeling just how keen Steve was to have Danny in his arms, looking down at him like... well, like _that_. Steve couldn't define it quite yet, but dammit if he didn't want to kiss it right off of Danny's face, just to see if it meant what his stupid, twitterpatted heart thought it might.

And of course, Danny, who was still looking at him with that same concerned fondness, his eyes crinkling and creating the little crow’s feet dotting the corners to look longer and more pronounced, did what he did best when Steve clammed up, and pushed again. “Steve? You okay?”

“Yeah,” Steve finally managed to breath as his heart started back up again. “I just – I didn’t know, is all, that you had nightmares about me.”

Danny rolled his eyes, like he couldn’t believe Steve still couldn’t comprehend that, yes, he was more than worthy of being worried after. “Yes, you putz, I had nightmares about shitty things happening to you. About you being hurt, and tortured and, uh… you know, mine ended the same way yours did… are.” 

Fond concern gave way to resigned fear, and Steve watched Danny avoid his gaze, looking down at Steve’s chest, and Steve felt the moment Danny finally realized how they were laying on the couch was not in a manner ‘bros’ would, but more so how a happy, in-love couple might. In the split second before Danny made to push himself up, which Steve divined through his in-built Danny ESP sensors, Steve’s arms become human anacondas and wound even tighter around Danny to keep him right where he was.

“Steve, what-“

“Stay,” Steve pleaded softly.

“I might be short and stocky and blonde, but I am not Eddie, Steven -"

“Danny,” Steve dipped his nose towards Danny’s hair, looking to get a word in edgewise about just why he would've preferred for Danny to stick around, and, in a move that had been seen in every romantic comedy the world over and one that Steve couldn’t hope to coordinate himself if he tried, his squirming partner happened to tilt his irritated head up at just the right moment.

Noses knocked together. Stubble scratched stubble. And Steve couldn't really believe it when he distinctly felt plush yet thin softness brush across his mouth, and the part of his brain that had seen him through all his crazy roof-jumping marathons and every single one of his NASCAR like car chases on the streets of Honolulu (and points elsewhere) triggered the muscle groups necessary to launch himself forward before Danny realized what he’d done and pulled away, before Steve could second guess whether or not it was a good idea to turn an accidental lip-brush to a very purposeful lip-lock.

He felt Danny freeze above him, but that was all he did. Danny didn't push him away, or move back, and Steve knew that he might have several inches and a couple of pounds on him, but if Danny wanted to get away, if he wanted to put a stop to this at any time, he more than had the power and ability to do so. As the seconds ticked on, each one feeling like a year or more, Steve's heart fluttered with the realization that Danny still wasn't pulling away.

And then, Danny was pushing forward, not to force Steve away from him, but to bring himself closer, and he was opening his mouth and his lips were stuttering against Steve's and Steve actually whimpered into the slow kiss Danny was giving him and happily passed the lead over to the subject of some pretty horrible nightmares, but also the star of some very nice dreams over the past many weeks.

"You forget to tell me something, babe?" Danny lifted up enough to ghost his mouth over Steve's after a few of the longest seconds of Steve’s life, and Steve had to really struggle not to follow those wicked lips.

"I've been having other dreams."

Danny quirked a brow. "Yeah?"

Steve nodded, swallowing down a little bit of guilt but mostly arousal at the way Danny was looking at him. "Since I came back."

"Uh-huh. About?"

Steve ducked his head into Danny’s neck, taking a deep, shaky breath to try and calm the itch he felt just under the surface of his skin. This was a lot right now, giving himself away so perfectly stupidly, kissing Danny, Danny kissing him back. “About you,” came his muffled answer, “and this.”

Steve felt and heard the thoughtful hum Danny gave, his partner’s throat vibrating right next to Steve’s cheek, which only made the latter want to lick at the scratchy midnight growth within his tongue’s reach, but Steve was entirely out of his depth here, and that nagging voice of doubt in the back of his mind that he was usually able to swiftly silence was now screaming at him that perhaps his impromptu declaration (of a sort - Steve wasn't exactly spinning sonnets here) might just be on the slight side of a mistake.

Which explained his confused grunt when Danny tapped him on the stomach and finally extricated himself from his python like arms. "It's almost two in the morning and I'm not going to spend the rest of the night squished between your unnatural, gigantic self and a couch, Steven," Danny climbed carefully off his partner, much to Steve's disappointment, but he was heartened just a few seconds later when, once Danny caught his balance, his partner nodded towards his guest room. "C'mon. It's cold and I wanna go back to sleep."

Steve blinked once, twice, trying to process what sounded like an invitation to actually follow Danny to his bed, and what he got was an eye roll and Danny's hands waving at him in a 'hurry up, get your ass moving' way that Steve didn't need ASL to translate. He got up, followed Danny into his room, and after a few awkward seconds of starting at the covers as if trying to figure out how they worked, climbed into bed beside him. Steve laid flat on his back, rigid and uncertain, looking up at the ceiling as thoughts of Danny waking up the next morning being horrified or even worse, offering a gentle let down of 'I was just shocked' and 'I didn't mean to kiss you back' or the ultimate, 'I love you, I just don't love you like _that_ ' danced through Steve’s head.

"I can't sleep next to a rod, Steven," Danny mumbled after a few minutes. Steve felt him roll onto his side which was followed by a sharp jab into his bicep, and, okay, that hurt, and it kept hurting as Danny's finger repeatedly prodded his arm. Steve batted his hands way in defense.

"If sleeping near you means I get poked and prodded I'll go back out to the living room," he threatened halfheartedly, because no, he wouldn’t, and both he and Danny knew it.

"Then relax and you won't get poked; honestly - it's like I'm sleeping next to a steel beam. Your tension seeps all the way through the mattress." Danny knocked his finger into Steve's shoulder one more time before fixing him with a gaze. "Seriously, Steve; sleep. This is good. This is good, we're _good_. We have lots to talk about I think, but it wasn't just you back there, babe. I kissed you _back_. Remember that?"

The only answer Steve could give was a dumb nod, but thankfully that appeared to be enough for Danny, who closed his eyes and stayed on his side, facing Steve, who watched him slowly doze off into a deep sleep.

Eventually, Steve followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a thing with the boys sleeping on couches with each other. Can't help it. Soft, sleepy confessions are best confessions in my book.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun, dun, duuuuuuunnn.... The Talk!

Danny woke the next morning to an empty bed.

It wasn't how he would've preferred to have greeted the day, especially after last night, but he couldn't say he was surprised. Much as he loved Steve - and Danny absolutely did love him, death defying shenanigans and all - Steve McGarrett had the emotional capacity of a toddler, the only difference being that when a two-year-old reached peak-done levels, he or she would have a stage ten tantrum.

Steve tended to shrivel in on himself and isolate, which was exactly what Danny suspected he was doing now. It was also the reason why Danny found himself fighting with the bed covers until he simply took hold of them and ripped them away. He swung his legs out from under the sheets and stood up, padding through the room into the living area of the house. His initial investigation for his missing partner would've normally begun in his room, but as Danny took a few steps forward, he noticed the sliding glass door to the lanai was cracked just a few inches.

Of course. Steve was swimming. Danny opened the door all the way and looked out over the black, lava rock leading to the rocky shore. "Gotta be kidding me people would actually want to live out here... real estate's cheap, my ass..." he muttered silently as he stepped onto the lanai concrete searching the sea. He found his target a few moments later, a dark head bobbing out of the waves, powerful arms glinting in the morning sunlight as they propelled the figure along. Danny allowed himself to luxuriate on the lanai for a bit and watch, letting himself enjoy the speed with which Steve cut through the water. The guy may be in his lower forties and may not technically be SEAL-fit, but that didn't matter one bit in Danny's eyes. McGarrett could still kick-ass, take names, and Danny wasn't bothered by acknowledging that Steve looked damn good doing it.

Deciding to set his sights on breakfast, Danny raided the fridge for what he'd purchased the day before, knowing he'd bought enough for today, which was their last day, and tomorrow morning before they hopped a puddle jumper back to Oahu. After checking on the steaks he'd dry rubbed the evening before, Danny set to cracking some eggs and whipping breakfast together.

He was just sliding the second omelet onto a plate when Steve slipped through the door, towel around his neck and hair sticking up in spikes all over, looking like a surfer's dream while framed in the edge of the door. Danny swore the morning sun was giving Steve's skin a halo effect and he hid a smile tucked towards the cheese and ham omelets recently plated and still steaming from the griddle. Feet were heard plotting themselves forward and Danny looked up to see a trace of surprise on Steve's face. "What?"

"You... made breakfast," Steve said, somewhat stilted and dumb and Danny had no clue how Steve managed to make that look adorable, but he did.

"As one tends to do at seven in the morning, Steven, if they have the misfortune of being awake so early." Danny lifted a brow and nudged a plate towards him, attempting to lure him closer with the promise of cheesy sustenance, even if Steve was peering at the omelets as if it were gruel from a gulag. "What, why are you looking at it like that?"

Steve opened his mouth. Closed it. And opened it again. Then closed it again. Opened i-

"Steve, are you going out for a goldfish mascot or something?"

"What?"

"You keep flapping your gums open and closed like a damn trout." And just in case Steve didn't get it, Danny flapped his fingers and thumbs together in the universal 'quack' symbol. Steve blinked at him. "Should I throw you back in the ocean or put you on the grill tonight instead of the lobster I bought yesterday?"

"Honestly?"

Danny's eyes narrowed.

"If it means I don't have to eat your eggs, then I'm willing to consider all options." But even as he poked the proverbial bear standing just on the other side of a well-polished food prep counter, Steve moved to tug the plate towards him just as Danny's fingers clasped around its porcelain edges, yanking it out of his partner’s tattooed arm’s reach. Steve frowned. "Gimme."

"No."

"Give me the plate!"

"No," Danny tugged it back even further, "you insulted my culinary skills. I slaved over a hot stove for you all morning after waking up and finding you doing your Michael Phelps routine and you come in and insult my breakfast."

"It's _my_ breakfast, you made the omelet for me, and I'm trying to eat it, but you won't give me the plate!"

"I don't feed people who insult my cooking." 

Steve let out a long-suffering sigh. "Daniel, the omelet looks delicious; may I please eat the breakfast you so graciously cooked for me?"

Danny considered Steve's request for a moment before offering a benevolent shrug and sliding the plate back towards him. "Was that so hard?" he snarked, passing a fork over as well. Bickering over with, they each dug in, eating mostly in silence until the plates were cleared and Steve was doing that thing he did when he was uncomfortable but didn't know what to say, or wasn't sure if he should. Ordinarily, Danny would've let him sweat it out and likely would've harassed him about it or at least slightly enjoyed it. In this case, having been married in the past had given Danny some great pointers on how to carry on as if nothing was wrong, like when your four-year-old daughter was watching with wide eyes from the dinner table, staring up at you and asking if you were okay after mommy had just stormed out of the kitchen. So, instead of pushing Steve, he pivoted towards safe territory for now.

"Our last day here," Danny reached across the counter and tucked Steve's plate towards him to wash it, "any crazy hikes or rock turtles you want me to see today?"

"Petroglyphs, and turtles are called 'honu'," Steve answered absentmindedly from behind him, his tone far off like he was on a cloud some place, likely floating away from all of the rejection he was imagining coming his way. Danny turned around to confirm that theory just in time to see Steve quickly divert his gaze to the side and the shutters come down, and, okay, perhaps ignoring this wasn’t the best course of action after all. The dishes were dropped in the water with a clang and water swished and splashed out and on Danny's shirt, creating annoying, blotchy wet patches on his chest that he knew would aggravate him in short order.

"Okay," Danny plucked at the wet on his shirt a bit before leaning against the counter and folding his arms over his chest. Steve was looking at him with Constipation Face on full display, as if it hadn't had a chance to be seen in a while and was making up for lost time. "I refuse to go through my day with you acting like Eddie when he chases cats and he knows he's not supposed to, so let's have this conversation now so we can go through our day without you thinking I'm gonna do something stupid, like punch you in the face. Which," Danny held up a finger and Steve's eyes zeroed in on it, like a sniper locating its target, "would normally not be stupid at all, more like a way to knock some sense into your SEAL head, but in this case, would definitely be a colossal mistake." He waited, watching Steve's unfairly, obscenely long eyelashes flutter a bit, which, unsurprisingly, caused a bit of a flutter in Danny's stomach. He cleared his throat in a sigh.

"Look, we've never not been able to be honest with each other, right?"

The aforementioned Constipation Face increased, if possible.

"You've been through a lot over the past year. I get it. And, if you want to forget what happened last night, I'll get that too." Danny swallowed, his throat suddenly dry and feeling as if an orange were stuck in it, his voice tight. "But I'm really, really hoping that you don't."

The rearranging of Constipation Face into Guarded-Yet-Hopeful-Puppy Face was a sight to behold as Danny watched Steve carefully translate what he was saying. “I figured it out while you were away,” Danny explained softly. “The only other time I felt as empty as I did when you were gone was when Rachel left the first time; only difference is I didn’t piss myself away on beer in a shoddy motel some place.” A rueful laugh escaped him as he watched Steve take in that information. “I decided to paint your house instead,” he added on as an afterthought, a little grin slipping through. Danny was warmed to see Steve’s face relaxing into something a little more easy going, and less like he wanted to crash through the lanai window and dive into the sea to swim away from the conversation.

“So,” Danny blew out a slow breath, trying to sooth a racing heart and tense nerves, “I’m guessing the Holy Spirit didn’t drop down on you in the middle of the night and give you the divine inspiration to want to make out with me?”

“Uh, no,” Steve coughed. Danny could see his cheeks and his neck pinking up a bit.

“Alright, so what was it?”

The pink got pinker and the shy shuffle started again, and Danny found it all oddly endearing, that Steve was actually _bashful_ about this when he’d been the one to push them both over the ledge on this in the first place. But Danny also knew that on the best of days, Steve would always have problems putting words to his feelings because every other time he had done so with people important to him in the past, it had all gone spectacularly wrong, or it hadn’t been enough to keep those people in his life.

John.

Doris.

Catherine.

“Steve, babe, c’mon,” Danny coaxed, easing around the side of the counter just as Steve looked up at him.

“A couple of nights after I came home, I had a dream about you.” Steve mumbled so low and coy that Danny had to lean forward into his space a little more to hear him. “Uh-huh,” he prodded when Steve didn’t continue. “So you said. Didn’t get very specific though when you first told me. What kind of dreams?”

“What kind of - God, Danny, come on, you know what kind of dreams!” Steve looked at Danny with all the pleadings of a man begging him not to make him say much more than that, but Danny had laid his heart on the line here, and he wasn’t about to let Steve walk away from this conversation without having been at least half as open and bare as Danny had been.

“Was it a good dream?”

Steve glared at him but nodded. “Yes. It was a good dream.”

“I see.” Danny mulled that over for a bit. “Was there more than one?”

“Oh my God, did you not hear anything I said last night?” Steve groaned, hunched over the counter and hiding his face in his hands. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Because I just told you very plainly how I felt, Steven, and I would hope that, now you know you’re not going to be rejected and that I am very much on the same page about you kissing me, and, in fact, would like for us to do _more_ kissing in the future, the very near future even, that all of that would be enough for you to be open with me about something like this. Especially since we didn’t get very far in the conversation last night.”

Danny’s argument rang true, hit home, cut through the bull, and every other metaphor that meant that Steve was relenting, finally, truly giving in to having this conversation. “In the first dream, we were… _you_ were, uh, giving certain areas of my body beneath the waist some attention.” Steve waited a beat, then, finished with, “With your mouth.”

“Huh.” Danny leaned forward on the counter, his head half a foot away from Steve’s. “I see. I was giving you fellatio.”

“Yes,” Steve flushed, sliding his hands off of his face and looking at Danny for the first time in the last few minutes.

“I was going down on you.” Danny grinned. Steve rolled his eyes but muttered an affirmative.

“A blow jo-“

“ _Yes_ , Danny, yes, okay?” Steve looked at Danny, exasperation and fondness mixing together like one of his ridiculous kale smoothies. “And just in case you’re thinking of asking,” Steve kept talking, and Danny focused on him because this is what he’d been harping on him to do since they’d finished breakfast, “‘yes’, it was a good dream, ‘yes’, I woke up because of it, and ‘yes’, I had to handle something afterwards.”

Danny believed in karma, and right now, he was cursing himself, because his karma consisted of a face that suddenly felt like he was standing in front of an open flame and finding that he couldn’t look at Steve without feeling his partner underneath him (and he knew what that felt like now because, hey, he’d been the topper last night) and seeing him ‘handle something’. He also didn’t miss the self-satisfied, wholly unrepentant smirk Steve was giving him as he openly enjoyed seeing Danny squirm for the first time since this conversation started.

Danny supposed he deserved that.

“I think that was just me maybe finally recognizing what’s been in front of me for a while,” Steve offered, watching Danny carefully. “It hurt. Being away from home,” he clarified, seeing the concern on Danny’s face and wanting to erase it immediately, “being away from everyone. Being away from you. It sucked, honestly. I didn’t know I could miss someone as badly as I did, but Danny – even Catherine when she left the second time wasn’t as bad as that.” Steve paused and Danny could tell he was fighting an internal war with himself, battling against his natural instincts that had always served him well, that had tucked him safely away behind shields and stoicism and compartmentalization to protect him, that was telling him to just stop talking, because he was revealing too much, even if it was only Danny he was speaking to. 

So, Danny inched his fingers a little closer and brushed some encouragement over Steve’s hand with gentle knuckles. To his surprise, Steve’s fingers reached out to grip his hand, kept it captive between his skin and the counter top as if it were Steve’s anchor, and Danny didn’t even think about pulling away. He squeezed back, a gentle urging Steve to keep going.

“I know I didn’t tell you when we would talk on the phone, but there were a few times I had to talk myself out of coming home because I knew I wasn’t ready yet. And then when I did come home and you found me in the garage, something just… I don’t know, it just kind of clicked into place.” Steve was looking at him now with such an stark realization in his hazel eyes that Danny forgot how to breath for a moment.

“Yeah.” Danny croaked and swallowed, ducking his head and looking away because now, it was he who couldn’t handle the conversation and all the feelings it was drudging up, the way his chest was tightening and how his lungs seemed to suddenly be starved for oxygen. He cleared his throat of the many questions flying through his mind right now and said, “You said it was the furthest from peace you’d ever felt.”

“Yeah,” Steve breathed, nodding his head slowly, continuing to watch him. “I didn’t get it until then. And then I had that dream – _those_ dreams – and I guess it all just kind of came together after that.”

“That was why you were acting crazy the day of the cookout, when you were all jumpy. It wasn’t because everyone was coming over, it was because of… all this.” Danny realized, gesturing between the two of them lamely with his other hand. 

Steve just nodded.

“Okay, well,” Danny squeezed Steve’s hand one more time before releasing it, “why don’t we figure out what we wanna do for our last day on this lovely, rocky, hopefully dead volcano. Hey, we can go look at the etch-a-sketches in the mountains.”

Steve groaned, rolling his eyes. “Petroglyphs, Danny. Petroglyphs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chappy. I promise it's extra fluffy with sprinkles and sweetness!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And alas, here we are, the final chapter of the second installment of this series. Thank you again for all the wonderful comments. I apologize for the cavities I've caused you :D
> 
> I hope you enjoy the final part of this story, but not to worry; there is a third installment on the way that I hope you'll enjoy just as much.

They spent the day an hour or so to the north at the Waikoloa Petroglyphs, and even though Danny had poked fun at the name back at the house, he followed Steve’s lead as they hiked through the preserve without his usual witty repartee or sarcastic soundtrack he would usually treat his partner to. Maybe it was because he was still absorbing their conversation from earlier that morning or maybe it was because he was trying to show some actual interest in something Steve was passionate about, but whatever the reason, he found himself unusually focused on the translations Steve was providing and on the _k’I’I_ _p_ _ō_ _haku_ in the ancient stone. Danny was especially proud of himself for not pointing out the fact that the hundred years old, historical treasure was parked squarely between a luxury golf course and its adjacent resort.

They roamed about exploring the shelters and petroglyphs, and by three o’clock mutually decided to call it a day and head back to the house. “Steaks should be good and marinated by now,” Danny said as they walked through the door, Danny going right for the fridge while Steve angled for his room. By the time Steve came back out, dressed in his swim trunks with a towel slung about his neck, Danny was already boiling water and laying out spices and what looked like butter and olive oil on the food prep counter. Steve wrinkled his nose a little. “What’s the butter for?”

“The lobster,” Danny answered, turning around, “and a garnish for the steaks once they come off the – what are you doing?” 

Steve squinted at him, as if it were fairly obvious. “I dunno, Danny, I’m wearing my swim suit, I got a towel with me-“

"I mean, what are you doing, where are you going?"

Steve looked down at himself and pinched the material of his swimming trunks between a finger and thumb, briefly wondering if this was a trick question of some kind. "Well, Danny, being the stellar detective you are, I thought you'd be able to figure out that, since I've got my swim suit on, that I would be going swimming. Out there," Steve pointed towards the crystal blue ocean yards away from their lanai door, "in the ocean. Where there's water-"

"Alright, okay, you know what, smart ass," Danny huffed, tossing a dish towel over his shoulder. "Fine, go ahead. Get eaten by sharks or have your daily meeting with the jellyfish, see if I care; more steak and lobster for me."

Normally, Steve would've just shrugged his shoulders and gone about his business while Danny harangued him with a rant about whatever he was annoyed about currently. But _now_ wasn't exactly normal. _Now,_ Steve was thinking about whispered confessions on a couch in a room illuminated only by the moonlight reflecting off the waves of the sea, and about morning conversations over breakfast that were as bare and transparent as the sunlight streaking throughout the room. He must've been standing there long enough to make Danny concerned, because his partner was peering at him curiously, an undercurrent of worry rippling beneath sharp blue eyes that had always known just how to read Steve.

"You don't usually have Aneurysm Face before you go swimming, babe; what's the matter?"

"Nothing," Steve answered quickly, too quickly, because Danny's eyes narrowed, and Steve didn't know why he thought why that reply would fly, "I just... I can stay in here, you know. If you want me to."

One would think that offer would've made any other person swoon, but not Danny Williams. No, if possible, the thin veil of unease became a curtain of visible concern as he stepped out of the kitchen area, walking towards Steve with his hands in his pockets. "Did you hit your head on one of those picture rocks? Since when do you ask me for permission to do anything, huh? You want to go swim, go swim; s'not like you need my blessing, Steve."

"I know that, but you - you seemed like you maybe might've maybe had a problem with it."

For all the jokes about Danny having the tones and Steve having the faces, Steve had always been amazed at the movie reel of expressions that could run across Danny’s face at any given moment. In the last ten seconds alone, Steve had seen a trilogy of confusion, disquiet, and shock before concluding in understanding. "I’m sorry, babe. I was thinking we’d talk or watch a game while I got dinner together, but if you want to go swimming again, go; that’s perfectly fine with me," Danny assured him gently. "Whatever it is we're doing, I'm not gonna go all possessive over you or anything like that." Steve took a breath and nodded, forcing his nerves to settle as he took in Danny’s softness and warmth and open, blue gaze. 

"I know that, Danny... I," Steve cleared his throat, willing his vocal cords to work. "I made mistakes, you know… before. I’m – I don’t want – I can’t make them again." Catherine's name went unsaid and Steve was once again grateful he didn't have to spell out everything with Danny, that he could talk in what others would consider cryptic code knowing that Danny would untangle the letters and place them in order to read the hidden message within. He figured their therapist would’ve admonished him for not being able to verbalize what he was feeling, but while Steve retained a certain amount of affection for the woman he and Danny were forced to see for almost two years, he was in no mood to hear her advice on ‘sharing’ again anytime soon.

“What are you talkin’, huh?” Danny laughed, and Steve wasn’t sure why because this wasn’t exactly a funny conversation, but Danny’s eyes were twinkling with mirthful reassurance, and his grin was bright. “You’re looking at the divorced guy who slept with his ex-wife when she was married to the guy she left me for. I know all about mistakes, babe – repeating them too. But I got Charlie out of that deal, so,” he shrugged, “it was worth it.”

Steve felt his lips tugging to one side in a smile. “Definitely worth it.”

“Yep,” Danny popped the ‘p’, tapping two fingers against Steve’s bare chest. Steve reached up and gripped them, holding them captive against his skin while Danny spoke.

“We’re both going to make mistakes here, Steve, but I can promise you that you going out and frolicking with the dolphins while I make dinner isn’t gonna be one of them. Okay?”

Steve hushed an ‘okay’ and his whole hand practically engulfed Danny’s to keep it right where it was, warm and sure. Steve could feel the pulse in Danny’s wrist tapping a rhythm out against his thumb while Danny’s fingers traced self-soothing patterns on his torso, and he didn’t have words to express his elation at Danny just staying right there with him, radiating reassurance that everything was good between them, that Steve had done nothing wrong. Suddenly, the prospect of being even a yard’s length away from Danny seemed very unattractive, but of course Danny doused cold water on that thought as he nudged Steve towards the door.

“Go do your swimming thing. Food’ll be near done by the time you drip your way back in here.”

Despite what Danny may say about Steve never listening to him, Steve did as he was told and took the next hour racking up lap after lap. When he was done, muscles and mind suitably relaxed, he traipsed carefully back across the rocky terrain onto the lanai, noting the scent of marinated meat coming off the grill. He dried off before stepping into the living room of the house and his eyes tracked Danny within two seconds of sliding the door shut.

Danny, who had clearly been putting his culinary skills to good use, if the smell permeating the air surrounding them was any indication, and who had also, apparently, taken a shower and changed in the time Steve had been butterflying through the sea outside. Gone were the hiking, grubby clothes of the morning replaced by jeans and a white collared shirt – seriously, did Danny go _anywhere_ without a button down within arm’s reach? – that made him seem all the more tanned. Steve blinked a few times, his brain trying to reconcile what he was seeing with what he was feeling.

Danny looked _good_. Danny looked good, and Steve would smack anyone in the mouth who said otherwise, because Danny was damn attractive, and Steve could see that now and feel it and say it. So he did. And, when Danny looked over his shoulder and gave him a little grin that was three quarters ‘damn right I look good’ and one quarter ‘you really think so?’, Steve’s heart and stomach twitched, and he swallowed hard because those two aforementioned organs weren’t the only ones pleased with the picture Danny presented.

He nodded and stumbled and fumbled and stuttered his way into saying he was going to take a shower and was infinitely grateful for Danny waving his hand at him. Steve carried himself into the bathroom, the image of a freshly showered and well-dressed Danny still in his mind as he stepped under the hot water and washed away the ocean salt from his skin and hair.

Danny had made some effort to look good for Steve for when Steve came back in, and Steve new he should offer no less to Danny in return. After nearly five minutes of scrubbing and sudzing himself clean, Steve hopped out of the shower and dripped his way into his room, knowing he’d brought something nice with him to wear just in case he and Danny decided to venture out into one of the nicer restaurants at the resorts for dinner, the way most single guys did when they were on a guys trip and might meet a nice woman at a bar, or in Steve’s case, on a puddle jumper a few years ago. He was beyond pleased that he hadn’t brought that shirt with him on this trip because that would’ve been awkward and uncomfortable as Hell when he remembered what he’d done while wearing that shirt. 

He rummaged through his suitcase and came up with a dark pair of jeans and a grey, shawl neck shirt with long sleeves. It wasn’t his usual style, but Steve had actually somewhat liked the heavy collared, scarf like look when Danny had gone shopping with him months ago for date night clothing during Danny’s ‘Must-Find-Steve-A-Girlfriend’ phase. Of course, when he’d purchased it he certainly hadn’t been thinking that he’d be wearing it for Danny on a … well, what was amounting to a date night in, but Steve’s life had served up stranger things than this.

In hindsight, as he dried off and got dressed, Steve figured that really should’ve told him something.

**Hawaii Five-0**

Dinner was fantastic, if Danny said so himself, and he did. So did Steve. The steaks were tender and flavorful, the lobster steamed and buttered to perfection, the corn on the cob was grilled without being burnt, and if Danny had cheated on the dessert by grabbing a frozen, ready to serve apple pie made lovingly by Ms. Sarah Lee, well, Steve didn’t have any complaints about it at all as he shoveled apple and whip cream into his mouth.

In fact, Steve had surprised in several ways tonight. He’d changed into something other than cargo pants for one, which Danny roundly congratulated him on. “I didn’t even know you had pants that weren’t cargos,” he’d joked. Steve had taken it all in stride as he’d presented Danny with surprise number two, which was moving the kitchen table and two chairs out onto the lanai which allowed for them to have a dinner with a beautiful view of the ocean. Danny found himself wondering if Steve had somehow managed to snag a candelabra to add to the romantic ambiance he’d created, as he’d brought out their plates. By the time they’d polished off the food and were on their second round of beers, the sun was hanging low in the sky and Danny thought to himself that it had been a long time since he’d felt this content with his life.

Except for now; sitting on a freshly wiped counter, Longboard number three sweating a bit at his side as he held a fluffy dish towel in one hand and dried a plate being held by the other. It was a thick, ceramic thing, not unlike what Danny sometimes thought Steve’s head was made out of, but similarities aside, Danny still placed the dish carefully on the counter next to him, far back enough so that it wouldn’t slip off and crash on the floor. Steve was doing the washing, hands drowning in hot, soapy water as he scrubbed plates, pans, and silverware, one by one passing them on to Danny until there was nothing to do but drain the sink. Danny watched Steve fish another beer out of the fridge and pop the cap, leaning against the counter.

And because Danny was such a good guy, he decided to kick start the conversation Steve obviously wanted to have, whatever it may be, if his shuffling feet and pinched face were anything to go by.

"What." Danny's query was a statement, an offer, a speak-your-peace, if one would. If Steve would.

Steve shrugged. "Nothing."

Steve wouldn't. 

Danny tilted the neck of his bottle towards Steve. "You know what's amazing to me?"

"Hm."

"That after ten years, you still think I believe you when you say that.”

Steve’s nostrils flared in annoyance. Danny grinned; it was cute, and he enjoyed it for a bit before taking pity on the guy. “C’mon, babe,” he coaxed, swinging his feet and back and forth, careful not to bang them against the very nice cabinets. “We got the hard stuff out of the way earlier, right? Can’t be that bad, huh?”

“No,” came Steve’s agreeable response. “I guess I’m just wondering what we do now… with us.”

“What, when we get back home?”

Steve nodded, stealing another sip of beer. “Yeah, when we get back home. I don’t want to hide this – us – from the team, but-“ Danny listened and watched as his partner’s feet scuffed against the tile floor as he shifted his weight, uncertainty squeaking with every bit of movement.

“-you don’t want to shout it from Diamond Head either,” Danny finished for him, jutting his lip out. “Me either.” He shrugged off Steve’s surprised look. “We only just now figured it out, Steve, and I don’t know what your experience is with men – well, aside from shooting them and punching them in the face, maybe dragging them around on a jet ski every now and again – but I have exactly zero experience with guys.” Danny made a circle with his thumb and forefinger and peaked through the hole the digits made, examining Steve as though he were looking through a microscope before letting his hand flop in his lap. “To be honest, I don’t need Tani poking her nose in our business while we’re figuring this stuff out, figuring _us_ out.”

“Agreed,” Steve was nodding emphatically, so hard in fact that Danny was afraid he’d knock his neck out of joint. “Love her, obviously, very much, but she’d be like Mary-“

“-or Brige-“

“Exactly,” Steve pointed a sage finger at him and Danny lifted an easy eyebrow back, “and I love my sister, but the questions will be embarrassing-“

“-and invasive-“

“-and inappropriate.” Steve grimaced. “And, you know, it’s not that I don’t want to, you know, with you-“

“I know.”

“And it’s not – I’m not having second thoughts, and I’m not questioning you or doubting you,” Steve was now talking very fast and Danny was fairly certain they were both rushing towards the point of Steve’s very long winded answer to Danny’s original and eloquently phrased inquiry of ‘what’ just a few minutes earlier. In fact, Steve was running his mouth so quickly that Danny almost missed Steve saying, “and I swear, Danno, I’m not thinking of leaving; I won’t leave again, that’s not what this is, but-“

“Whoa,” Danny held his hands up in the universally accepted sports language of ‘time out’, “where’s all that coming from?”

It was amazing, to watch Steve go from insistent to shy schoolboy in under three seconds. He was rubbing the back of his neck and Danny would swear on a six pack of Longboards, of which there was another in the fridge because Danny was a smart guy who liked to be prepared with beer for all occasions, that Steve was mentally kicking himself for what he’d just said. “Steve?” Danny slid his beer off to the side, settling his hands in his lap. 

“The day I left,” Steve mumbled, “I can’t – how I acted, some of the stuff I said, just… everything, Danny.”

“We talked about that months ago, babe, literally,” Danny pointed out, calmly, watching Steve try to find his footing in the conversation again.

“You shouldn’t’ve had to, Danny.” Steve looked at him, and Danny’s chest nearly pressed out all the air within it at the guilt Steve had in his eyes. “You can say it’s all good, and I know you did that night when you called, but I know you, Danny. I hurt you with what I said, how I just… just pushed you away, left you after you got hurt, and I’m sorry, man. Especially with… you know,” Steve took a deep breath, “with you, and me, and this… this thing we’re gonna try.”

“I’m sorry, this _thing_?” Danny rolled his eyes. “This thing. Eloquent as always. Steve, come here.”

Wary Steve was wary, and Danny merely offered an unimpressed look. “If I’d wanted to smack you I’d’ve done it already, trust me, with this ridiculous guilt complex you carry around with you. And Steve, just so you know, considering I was raised Catholic? That is saying something.”

“You know, I’ve heard of people complaining about having to give apologies before, but I’ve never heard of anyone, literally no one in the known universe, ever complaining about _getting_ one.” Steve grumbled, none the less shuffling over, in his lovely jeans and ridiculously good-looking shirt-sweater-cowl thing, and Danny decided that if he was going to knock some sense into his partner’s burdensome and culpable conscience, he would do so gently and with loving care.

He kicked Steve lightly in the leg once he was near enough, to which Steve offered a muttered ‘ow’ and a glare of indignation. Danny shrugged. “An apology usually comes with penance.”

Steve’s only response was a long-suffering sigh. “Danny-“

“No, Steve, listen to me.” Any trace of amusement was gone from Danny’s voice and Steve seemed to recognize that because he quickly closed his mouth and didn’t offer anything further. “You’re right; some of the stuff you said back then stung, alright? I was hurt, I was afraid you weren’t coming back, I felt like I was never gonna see you again, like… like I was losing a part of me, and we obviously both know now why I felt like that.” Danny plucked Steve’s shirt gently. 

“Babe, I spent so many years being pissed with Rachel for simple shit, things she’d say that didn’t come out right, and she’d be mad at me for days for the same thing, and then we’d just move on and not talk about it and think everything was okay, but it wasn’t. When me and her couldn’t talk to each other, couldn’t forgive each other, that’s when it ended. I’m not gonna make the same mistake with you, Steve. Yeah, it hurt,” Danny nodded, “yes, I was pissed for a while, and scared, and angry, and a whole bunch of other stuff, but I had to remind myself that I wasn’t the only one hurting; you were too. You had to do what you needed to do to stop hurting. Once I realized that, I was able to let it go – let you go, so _you_ could do what you needed to do to find what you needed.” Danny allowed a tiny grin to slide along his lips, hoping to lift the air of tension surrounding them. “And that’s why you didn’t get punched in the mouth when you got home.”

Steve barked out a laugh and Danny was pleased to see his partner’s shoulders lower, the tension bleed out and away as he murmured, “You’re a very violent person, I just realized that.” 

Steve slowly slipped his hands along Danny’s sides, his grip tightening just a little when Danny didn’t push his hands off or pull away; if anything Danny’s foot may have snuck behind Steve’s leg and _possibly_ maybe pulled him forward, into the valley between his legs. They were close enough now that Danny could see Steve’s Adam’s apple drop as he swallowed, could hear the hitch in his breathing. Steve was anxious, and it was adorable, and God help him, but Danny just couldn’t not say something.

“Has Smooth Dog left the building? Huh?” Danny chuckled, enjoying the flush to Steve’s neck and cheeks that were creeping along his tanned skin, making him look even more inviting. “Is this Shy Dog I’m seeing here?” 

“Shut up,” Steve laughed nervously, Danny watching his eyes dart this way and that, but Steve didn’t pull away, didn’t even try to. His tongue darted out between his lips, wetting them, and Danny didn’t miss his partner’s eyes lowering just that little bit to his own mouth. “I… I can’t mess this up with you, Danny.”

Danny took pity on him, along with a deep breath. “I can’t mess this up with you either, Steve,” he soothed. “I’m not saying I won’t fuck up, and I’m not saying it won’t be a little weird in the beginning – I mean, by now, if you were a chick I’d have you on the couch and we’d be on our way to a very nice evening, you know-“

Whatever else Danny was going to say was forgotten as Steve cut him off, pressing his lips against Danny’s, gentle and bashful and so sweet Danny found himself wondering if this was going to be as bizarre as he was professing it would be mere seconds ago.

“Animal,” he muttered when Steve pulled away just enough for Danny to still feel the lick of Steve’s lips against his own. “I was talking.”

“When aren’t you talking?” Steve whispered, looking at him, warmth and amusement and affection pushing away the nerves that had been there a little bit ago – correction, that were still there, just barely, Danny realized as he looked closer and nuzzled his nose against Steve’s. “Smooth Dog after all, hm?”

“No, just Steve,” Steve murmured, tucking his forehead against Danny’s. Danny, who was warm and happy and giddy and just a little scared of the tidal wave of emotion swirling in his chest, whose foot was sliding against the back of Steve’s leg, which he was relatively certain was making Steve almost purr softly. A streak of possessiveness, thin though it may be, sliced through Danny and he wove his arms around Steve, clutching him tight. Almost as if he was reading his mind, Steve pressed a kiss against Danny’s forehead. “I won’t leave again, Danny,” he promised softly. “I’m here to stay.”

“Good to hear,” Danny murmured, nudging his nose against Steve’s chin until his partner looked down at him and Danny could kiss Steve properly again.

And again.

And again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it goes.
> 
> Goodbye, so soon, and isn't it a shame.
> 
> But when we see each other next, it will be soon, and with highly entertaining and wonderful results.
> 
> In the meantime, thanks again, and feel free to look around my little corner of AO3!

**Author's Note:**

> Time for a bit of fun in getting our boys to come to some realizations, and, as you can see, I am sparing no shenanigans along the way, because the idea of Danny losing his absolute mind at the thought of Rachel dating a current congressman and the (possible) next governor of Hawaii, i.e., Five-0’s next boss?
> 
> _Priceless_.
> 
> Also, for those who don't know, Qui Chin Kang was the name of the character David Carradine played in Kung Fu and reprised in Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, which still remains one of the best mid 90's reboots of an original show ever.


End file.
